


Microcosm

by Abitofwhimsy



Category: Jurassic Park (1993), Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic Park Series - Michael Crichton, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), Westworld (1973)
Genre: F/M, Loki robot, Tom Hiddleston as a velociraptor, Tom Hiddleston robot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 165,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abitofwhimsy/pseuds/Abitofwhimsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime in the near future a high-tech, highly-realistic adult amusement park called Firdos features three themed “realms” — the Pirate-realm, the Viking-realm, and the Zombie-realm. The resort’s three realms are populated with lifelike androids that are practically indistinguishable from human beings, each programmed in character for their assigned fantasy environment. </p><p>Five experts are called in to help test the park’s soon-to-open forth installment, the Prehistoric-realm, in which guests may interact with life-sized robotic dinosaurs.</p><p>Special effects producer Joanna Borton is among the group of testers, and becomes attached to her dinosaur-guide, a velociraptor that calls himself Thomas.</p><p>However, things begin to go startlingly wrong when robot breakdowns occur throughout the resort. Together, Joanna and Thomas must find a way to escape the park alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For ages I wanted to write a fic where Tom Hiddleston was a velociraptor, and having robotic humans and dinosaurs seemed like the only plausible way I could get Hiddleston to be both a raptor and a man within the same story. This idea was mostly inspired by the Michael Crichton novels "Jurassic Park" and "West World", both of which deal with the breakdown of poorly managed amusement parks. This is my first real attempt at a proper with more than two major characters, so please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

_. . . Wednesday: Six days before total systems failure . . ._

 

  
It took Borton a good ten minutes to notice the man in the well-tailored suit, and when she finally did her first thought was that he looked very out of place in the workshop. He was standing a little ways away, beside an upright row of robotic torsos that were missing their lower-halves, skin, and much of the delicate cog-work below the breastplate. Half-finished creations hung suspended from the ceiling above his head.  
  
Borton saw him, halted in the careful process of re-attaching the newly repaired circuits to the belly of the whale, and began to wriggle out from underneath it's frame.  
  
The man in the suit stared expectantly down at her. He was holding a delicate-looking suede briefcase at his side, and his hair was slicked neatly back with oil.  
  
"Hi," Borton said, open and amicable as she stood up and stretched. Today she was dressed in typical shop attire; ripped jeans and a white t-shirt covered in grease stains. Her mop of gnarled brown hair sat hidden under a ratty baseball cap.  
  
Behind her, the intern continued to fiddle with the servo-mechanism on the whale's fin.  
  
The man in the suit stepped toward her, dodging scraps of metal and bits of loose wire, and addressed her in a crisp, refined tone of voice.

"Joanna Borton?"  
  
"That's me," said Borton with a smile. "Can I help you with something?"  
  
Borton expected him to introduce himself as a studio executive – he certainly looked like one. But instead he withdrew a business card from his suit pocket and offered it to her. She wiped a dirty hand across her pant leg before she took it, then brushed a thumb across the raised letters of his name – Harold Nigh, and below them, a circle separated into three differently colored thirds. The recognizable insignia of the Firdos Corporation.

Borton's eyes flashed back to Nigh's, and he asked if they could go somewhere to talk. Intrigued, she agreed, directing her intern to handle the rest of the repairs in her absence.  
  
"We want your opinion on something, Miss Borton," said Nigh as they entered the bar. "It's to do with some of our newer animatronics."   
  
Borton was surprised by that.

"Really? I didn't think your bots ever broke down," she joked as they found an empty booth and each took a seat facing each other.  
  
"No, no, we're not looking for a consultation, exactly," said Nigh. "This is something different." With that, he lifted his briefcase onto the tabletop, unhinged the clasps and gently opened it.  
  
The booths at the back at the bar suffered from poor lighting, and as a result the area was more or less deserted. Nigh had picked it specifically for that reason. Borton was passed several pieces of paper, each one with the word "CONFIDENTIAL" stamped across the front in red ink. Although she had to squint to study them, she recognized at once that they were a set of highly detailed schematics.  
  
Her eyes narrowed. 

"Are – Are these _dinosaurs_?" She asked, holding up a blueprint for what appeared to be a mechanical triceratops.     
  
Nigh nodded.  
  
"We've expanded the park," he began, hushed and secretive, as though someone might be eavesdropping. "It's been in the works for the last decade. Top secret. Nobody knows about it yet."  
  
He paused for dramatic effect, and suddenly Boton found herself on the edge of her seat, straining with anticipation.  
  
"The Prehistoric-Realm, we're calling it," Nigh whispered at last, his dark eyes darting suspiciously around the bar.  
  
Borton leaned back against the cushion of the booth.

 _Dinosaurs_ , she thought excitedly, looking dazed.  _Robotic dinosaurs._

Nigh went on despite her, describing the new addition in full, extravagant detail. His spiel about the park's planned fourth installment had a gravity that kept Borton totally invested, even when he started to make it sound as though it was going to be bigger than Disney Land, than Universal Studios – than the Pirate-realm.  
  
"And the best thing of all," Nigh told her enthusiastically, "is that the Prehistoric-Realm will cater entirely to children. I mean, not only will Firdos be opening up it's target demographic, but we'll be re-branding our entire image as well. Our goal is to be seen as a major family-friendly vacation spot from now on."  
  
_Dinosaurs_ , Borton repeated inwardly, still trying to process it. _Robotic dinosaurs._

Flashes of her childhood began sparking across her mind. She saw fleeting glimpses of bright green plastic toys discarded in the sandbox, of a television show she used to watch – the one with the singing t-rex. And scenes from the old film her father had once shown her. The one she must have viewed a thousand times since then, over and over again until she could recite it line for line in perfect unison with the actors on the screen. The film that inspired her to follow in her father's footsteps, the film that made her want to work in the special effects industry alongside him bringing mythical beasts and impossible monsters to life.  
  
The film about _dinosaurs_.  
  
Borton gazed dreamily down at the blueprints.  
  
"It's scheduled to open in a little over a year," said Nigh, referring to the park. "Most of the major construction is finished. Now we're in the testing phase."  
  
Borton tried to picture it all based on the blueprints and the description Nigh had given her. She tried to envision the revival of a land long since dead. But it was difficult at first, even though she knew that Firdos had done it before. There was the Pirate-realm in 2078, which revolutionized both the robotics industry as well as modern theme parks, and then the Viking-realm in 2081, and finally, a total of five years after the resort's initial opening – the dystopian Zombie-realm in 2083, which had it's grand opening on Halloween.  
  
But there was a difference.  
  
While historically accurate to the most minute of facets, and comprised of technology that was both wonderfully and woefully complex (the androids featured at the park were some of the most intricate in the world, and not even her father had been able to accurately guess at their mystery) – none of the Firdos parks built so far had featured dinosaurs.  
  
"But how?" Borton finally managed, beyond perplexed.  
  
"Well it wasn't easy, I can tell you that," said Nigh. He reached out and tapped one of the blueprint pages. "Initially we had quite a bit of trouble with the dinosaurs' construction. Most of our engineers had never built anything larger than a horse, so they had to totally re-think the building process. And afterward, well, we really struggled with getting their movements to look realistic. Very difficult without a living reference, I can tell you." He paused to laugh about it. "Yes sir-ree, in the beginning it was a real nightmare for us."  
  
"I can understand that," said Borton.  
  
A lifetime spent helping her father provide large, elaborate creature effects for high budget feature films had given her invaluable insight into the complications of most modern robotic systems. On one such occasion she had been working with her father on a fantasy television series in Montreal, and while the design and construction of the two-ton mechanical dragon had been a brilliant exercise of their creative skills, problems had plagued the set. The dragon had suffered constant breakdowns on account of it's massive weight and odd dimensions, and due to the tight filming schedule there had been little to no time to make sufficient repairs. By that logic it made perfect sense that, at first, the larger dinosaur models built by Firdos for the Prehistoric-Realm would have been too heavy to move fluidly, much like the dragon.  
  
"But we've fixed all that by adjusting the hydraulics systems and re-calibrating the weight distribution in the balance circuits," Nigh explained, half-boasting. "Of course, it wasn't just their size that was giving us trouble. We wanted our dinos to be interactive. You see, once everything is open, the smaller dinosaurs will act as tour-guides. You know, taking the children through tours of the recreated jungles and all that. And for those guide models – well, up until now it's proven very difficult for our people to dream up the proper personalities for them."  
  
Somewhere in the distance the bartender clicked the television on and raised the volume.  
  
"When you say personalities, you mean the artificial intelligence?" Borton asked Nigh, ignoring the new distraction.  
  
She had done some brief, elementary personality coding in the past, having learned the fundamentals from her father at a young age. On the set of _SteelBlade 2_  he had been responsible for the construction and programming of several goblins and a troll the size of a hippopotamus, and had taken Borton (then only fifteen) under his wing to help to help him with their completion. But those had been simple animatronic systems, and they had only been asked to operate when cameras were rolling. The robots of Firdos, Borton knew, operated on twelve to twenty-four hour cycles at least.  
  
"Yes, we've had to redesign the AI programming templates we were using," Nigh said conversationally. "We have around ten dinosaurs operational at the moment, about seven jungle models and three tour-guide models, and each one of them was programmed manually using the new AI templates. Very time consuming, as you can imagine. We aim to have another fifteen jungle models finished by the time we begin testing, and another two or three guides as well. And we'll likely have our automated computers program the rest with the standard safety protocols and _basic_ assigned personalities. That's the standard practice."  
  
He stopped to take a breath, and then remarked simply "It was frustrating at the time, but all in all, the complications afforded us a chance to really think outside the box."  
  
Borton glanced down at the blueprint again with fresh astonishment. "They look incredible. Hell, they _sound_ incredible."  
  
Nigh grinned.  
  
"Will the new park work like the others? Or, will the parents bring their kids with them when they come and – "  
  
"They'll deposit the children in the Prehestoric-realm, and then venture off to enjoy one of our other, adult-oriented parks."  
  
"Like the Pirate-realm," Borton said excitedly.  
  
"Like the Pirate-realm, yes."  
  
"Sounds like a big robotic petting zoo to me," said Borton thoughtfully. 

"More like a Dino daycare center."

"That's really amazing."  
  
"Well it will be," Nigh assured her. "Once it's completely up and running, of course." He took the schematics and put them back in his briefcase. "But as I mentioned earlier, we're on to the testing phase now and we would just love it if you could come down for a week or two, Miss Borton. Go on one of the tours, spend a few days with the dinosaurs. Give us your opinion of the new park."  
  
For a moment Borton seemed thrown by the request. She struggled to reply.  
  
"Me? You want me to–"  
  
"We'd love to get feedback from someone who's in the entertainment industry," Nigh explained. "And not only are you at the top of your trade, so to speak, but you've had extensive experience building large working creature effects. You're just the kind of person we want to test out the Prehistoric-Realm."    
  
A rush of giddiness filled Borton. She had never been to the Firdos resorts before. She had never really had the money to go, let alone the time, but she had read the articles and she had seen the commercials. She knew from Nigh's description that this new addition would be grandiose, possibly bigger than it's sisters. A domed microcosm on whatever edge of the island resort was left available, complete with the same screen-projected sky and computer-controlled weather systems that the others featured. Possibly another high-intensity ocean simulator, similar to what was used in the Pirate-realm.  
  
Concentrating as best she could, she visualized the park in her head, lush with carefully picked vegetation and filled with life-sized working animatronics, larger than anything she or her father had ever built for any film or television show. It would surely draw an immense crowd when it came time for opening day. She pictured the visiting tourists staring up at the giant, lumbering mechanisms covered in life-like painted rubber, massive motorized heads swaying back and forth, with innards lit up like christmas lights – full of circuitry and wireless processors that would connect them to the central control hub, where the men in charge would observe the goings on with acute scrutiny and take the necessary precautions to keep the guests safe.  
  
And finally, she saw herself in the park, strolling through the jungle, lead down the path by a dinosaur – some nameless amalgam of all the dinosaurs she had ever seen before in picture books or on display in museums. Together they would trek though the brush, hunting for other dinosaurs, searching for them with binoculars like some pair of extreme birdwatchers. And her guide would walk with her, talk with her, tell her about the scenery, comment on the various specimens they would come across, and the others available to view in the park.  
  
"Will they talk?" she asked quickly, exhilarated.  
  
"Oh yes, the guides will speak." he guaranteed matter-of-factly. "As I said, they've been programed to be interactive. They will be there to provide the children with a fun, safe experience."  
  
"Like camp counselors?"  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"So, essentially, that's what it is?" asked Borton. "A dinosaur camp?"  
  
"Very similar, yes." said Nigh. "The kids would do various dinosaur-related activities, go on nature hikes, learn things. It's going to be a real treat for them."  
  
She was quiet for another moment, trying to paste the new information into the world she had built in her mind.  
  
Her father would have loved the concept of a place where you could walk with dinosaurs, _talk_ with dinosaurs. He had always been an imaginative, playful man whose good natured disposition and habit of embracing the whimsical had made the effects he provided truly unique. She had an inkling that if he were still alive today the offer of a free visit to Firdos would be his, rather than hers. But as it stood he was gone, and the workshop was under her control now, although it had suffered a major dip in business after his passing.  
  
However, the notion of large, working animatronic dinosaurs was so incredible that, for just that moment, she was able to forget her long list of financial troubles and allow herself to become fully immersed in the chimera of it all.  
  
_Dinosaurs_ , she thought again, enraptured by the mere thought of it. Not only would it be a chance to visit Firdos and examine their machinery first-hand on a professional, technical level, but it would also prove an opportunity for her to live out one of her oldest childhood fantasies. Really, what kid didn't dream of getting a chance to see dinosaurs up close and in person?  
  
"Would I be the only one testing?" she inquired eagerly.  
  
"You'll be accompanied by a group of four others." Nigh informed her. "There's Michael Quinn, a paleontologist who will be there to review the authenticity of the park. Henry Irvine, a children's book author and child psychologist who will judge whether or not the park is an agreeable place to bring young children. And Errol McCullough, a games designer who will be there to evaluate the activities we have lined up. We're also trying to get Vernon Abrams, the tourism critic from the BBC. He was tricky to book, but we've promised to given him an exclusive."  
  
"Ah." she mumbled, pondering the names and finding none were recognizable to her.  
  
"Well?" Nigh asked her. "What do you say?"  
  
A long pause as she contemplated.  
  
At last, "I don't know. I mean, this whole thing is just so out of the blue."  
  
She rubbed the back of her neck, feeling uncomfortably angry with her own sense of responsibility.  
  
"It's just – I'm in the middle of a project right now." she divulged unhappily.  
  
It was true. The past year and a half had been relatively devastating, both emotionally and fiscally, and in an attempt to simultaneously prove herself as talented as her predecessor, as well as preserve his legacy, she had decided to produce her own film – a modern adaptation of _Moby Dick_. One that would rely almost wholly on practical effects, namely a fifty-two foot sperm whale puppet which she herself would supply. But the whale was behind schedule, and the film shoot was due to begin at the end of the month.  
  
All of her energy and efforts had been going into ensuring that the production did not flounder. And with both her and her father's reputations hanging in the balance, she decided she simply did not have the time to go galavanting around some amusement park, no matter how tempting the offer was.  
  
"I really can't." she confessed sadly, the daydream of dinosaurs dying in her head.  
  
"We'd be willing to pay." insisted Nigh, and before she could stop him he was scribbling down a figure on a bar napkin and sliding it across the table at her.  
  
Uneasy, she flipped the napkin right-side up and saw the number scrolled across the surface in blue ink. If she had been drinking something, she would have spat it out. Instead she swore loudly, causing several bar patrons to turn and stare.  
  
"You'll also have full access to the other Firdos realms following the trial," he went on, clearly amused by her reaction. "As well as a year-long pass to the favored realm of your choice."  
  
She crumpled the napkin in her hand, mind swirling. With that amount of money she could postpone production without any backlash, could fix the whale, could afford to produce a _series_ of films rather than just the one.  
  
Voice shaking, she spoke.  
  
"Sure. Sure, yeah. When do you want me?"  
  
"We'd like to fly you out this weekend, if that's not too short notice for you."  
  
Borton nodded rapidly, readily agreeing and confident that her intern would be able to finish the repairs without her – provided she left him a detailed set of instructions. And at any rate, when was the last time she even had a vacation? Her memory failed her.  
  
"Fantastic." Nigh beamed, and presented her with a single envelope from the briefcase. "That's your ticket for our hovercraft. It's a first class seat, of course. Everything's been pre-arranged and paid for. We've spared no expense. And if you have any questions, feel free to call me direct. I'm available any time." he added, standing.  
  
She stood too, a little flighty. The reality of her confirmation had not yet completely sunk in, and as it was she couldn't begin to believe her luck.  
  
She watched as Nigh's grin stretched wide. "You're going to love it at Firdos, Miss Borton. You really are."  
  
They shook hands and she watched him leave, all of it being rather abrupt. Afterward, once he was gone, she allowed herself to droop lazily into the cushion of the booth, and her focus was quickly pulled elsewhere – out of her own head and onto the sound coming from the television just above the bar.  
  
The commercial was a familiar one, and she let her tired eyes settle on it.  
  
"– the vacation of the future, today. At Firdos, you get _your_ choice of the vacation _you_ want."  
  
The attractive woman stood beside an airport exit-gate, caked in makeup and wearing a v-neck blouse that hung appallingly low.  
  
"There's the Pirate-realm, the Viking-realm and, of course, the Zombie-realm. Now let's talk to some of the people who've been there. Pardon me, sir. What is your name?"  
  
A short, muscular man appeared from off-screen.  
  
"Harold Lewis." he droned, staring at the microphone she was holding. "Just got back from the Zombie-realm."  
  
"Tell us how you liked it, Mr. Lewis."  
  
Lewis' face lit up, and all at once he stammered "Oh it was insane. It was like being in one of those classic Romero films. Hoards of monsters chasing after you, trying to tear you apart. I shot six zombies on my first day! Well, that is, they weren't real zombies." he added with a nervous laugh.  
  
"What Mr. Lewis means is that he shot six robots scientifically programmed to look, act, talk and even bleed just like zombies do. Isn't that right?"  
  
"Well, they may have been robots. I mean, I think they were robots."  
  
"Yes, the robots of Firdos may appear menacing, but in all Realms they are there to serve you and to give you the most unique vacation experience of your life. Thanks you, sir."  
  
Lewis smiled, waved, and was gone. Next came a young, mousy-faced girl who had clearly tried to walk past as subtly as she could manage. However, the effort had been wasted, as she was pulled on-screen nevertheless.  
  
"And you, miss?"  
  
Wide-eyed, she squeaked an embarrassed "Hello."  
  
"What is your name?"  
  
"Janet. My name is Janet Lane, and I was in the Viking-realm."  
  
"What is the one thing that stands out in your mind about the Viking-realm?"  
  
"Oh, well I, uh, I think it would have be the men." she murmured, blushing, but when pressed for specifics refused to speak, turning an even deeper shade of red.  
  
"Thank you very much!" said the host, and waved her away. "And you sir?"  
  
A burly, middle-aged man with thinning hair and a pot-belly: "Yeah?"  
  
"What is your name, sir?"  
  
"Oh, I'm Ted Davis. I'm a stockbroker from Syracuse."  
  
"And which realm did you just come from, sir?"  
  
"Oh, you're not going to believe this. I've just been the captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge in the Pirate-realm for the last two weeks." he proclaimed loudly, putting on a false accent.  
  
The host chuckled. "And did it seem real to you, sir?"  
  
"Of course." he replied bluntly. "It's the realest thing I've ever done. I mean that."  
  
"Thank you very much." And off he went.  
  
"Well, there you have it. Just a few of the comments from some of the people who've returned from Firdos."  
  
Now a montage of Firdos imagery appeared on screen. A pirate ship sailing through a stormy ocean, a handsome Viking warrior throwing a battle-axe at a tree, a vicious zombie lunging at the camera, and finally, the contact information with the Firdos logo underneath.  
  
"Get in touch with us today for more details, or see your travel agent about arranging a stay at the Pirate-realm, the Viking-realm, or the Zombie-realm." the host chimed happily, "Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to Firdos, Joanna Borton is introduced to the rest of the testing group that has been called in to preview the Prehistoric-realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main testers are based on other well-known television actors. The original draft of this chapter used their actual names, but for the sake of keeping it Hiddleston-centric I didn't use their names in the final edit. Points to you if you can guess who they are though.

_. . . Saturday: Three days before total systems failure . . ._

 

  
The massive AVC-9000 transrocket (more commonly referred to as a hovercraft by both it's creators as well as the general public) was shaped like a large, metal stingray, and dwarfed even the largest of commercial airplanes, promising to half the time of any journey taken on the latter. The inside was spacious, complete with maneuverable cushioned seats, several feet of leg and arm room, soft carpeted floors, private headphones which plugged into the on-board computer and offered a wide variety of distinct listening choices, and lastly, an individual compartment of overhead storage space per passenger – enough to fit several stuffed suitcases and then some.    
  
Upon entering the interior of the craft Borton's ticket had been scanned a second time by the head attendant, and following this she had been asked to step aside. It had then been requested of her to relinquish any photographic or recording devices she had on her person, with the promise of their return on the flight back. Failure to do so would result in their confiscation and destruction upon entry at Firdos. She had assumed by the seriousness of the request that they must not have wanted her to reveal any of the new exhibits to the public once she was back in Hollywood, and so she had complied. But sitting there now in the spacious comfort of her first class seat she felt a little ridiculous, knowing she was headed to one of the world's most fascinating vacation spots without a camera or a mobile phone. Still, she didn't linger on the feeling for long, soon overwhelmed by the comfort of the craft and the understanding that, shortly, she would be at Firdos.  
  
The rest of her week had been filled with an abundance of meetings, the majority of which she herself had scheduled. She had met with the various members of the film crew and effects team to explain the situation. She had met with the other backers to tell them that there would be a slight delay in production while she acquired more funds. And finally, she had met again with Nigh in order to sign a host of legal paperwork, many of which were non-disclosure forms. It was during that final meeting that she had received the paycheck she had been promised.  
      
Afterward, the ball of stress that had formed somewhere in her lower stomach immediately proceeding her father's funeral began to melt away. Now, inside the hull of the hovercraft, she took a moment to contemplate her current surroundings, to feel the soft cushion under her back, to breath the recycled air and listen to the hum of the engine warming up. She found that it felt strangely exhilarating to be somewhere other than the workshop on a Saturday afternoon, and it occurred to her that she was glad to be leaving. A year and a half's worth of constant worrying, of continual work without breaks or sleep or consolation, had left her both physically and mentally exhausted, and after such a long run she felt extremely happy to have a chance to relax.  
  
Outside the hovercraft, tiny men in yellow jackets were prepping the runway for incoming traffic. The sky was cloudless.  
  
Anxiously, Borton waited to leave, jiggling her leg and tapping her fingers against the armrests, growing more and more impatient with each passing second spent on the ground. She stared eagerly out the window at the runway below, trying to catch a glimpse of any outward sign that they would soon be on their way. Eventually she began rifling through the magazines in the slot at the side of her seat, desperately searching for a distraction that might make the time move more quickly. When she had exhausted her search through the reading material (there wasn't much of it, and what was there hardly caught her interest), she turned her attention to the front of the craft and saw that the flight crew were preparing to announce the safety procedures. She figured there would be at least another ten minutes until departure, and settled back in to wait, huffing restlessly.  
  
At the entrance beside the cockpit a handful of late arrivals were still boarding, hurriedly shuffling down the rows to find their assigned seats, luggage in hand. One such traveler – a tall, lean looking stick of a man with horn-rimmed glasses and an angular bush of hair that seemed to defy gravity – came bounding energetically down the aisle and dropped himself with a heavy _thud_ into the empty seat beside her.  
  
"Hello." he said in a thick, Scottish accent (only it came out sounding more like _'elloo_ ). "Errol, Errol McCullough. Very pleased to meet you." he announced, and snatched up her hand in a vigorous shake.  
  
"Joanna Borton." she said, twisting out of his tight grip and cracking her knuckles.  
  
When she looked back up she saw that his mouth had dropped open, and he remained that way for several awkward seconds, showing her the various fillings in his teeth.  
      
Borton smiled nervously and that seemed to break the spell.  
      
"Not thee Joanna Borton? Daughter of the award-winning visual effects supervisor and producer _Christopher_ _Borton_?" he finally exclaimed, and without waiting for a reply he launched headfirst into a spirited confession of adoration and praise, calling her father one of the best special effects artists since Stan Winston, and naming six of the films her father had previously worked on as his personal favorites. She had met fans before, but never one with such an animated reaction to the mere mention of her name, and so, unaccustomed on how best to respond, she simply sat there and let him rave.  
      
"God," he gushed playfully, catching his breath. "I really can't believe it. I'm sitting next to the daughter of Christopher Borton. Me. What a stroke of luck, eh? What a bit of serendipity. Do you know, I must've seen _Mountains of Madness_ seven times in the cinema. That part where Cthulhu rears his head up out of the water and swallows the submarine? It was just terrifying. He did a fantastic job."  
      
"Oh, em, thank you." she answered, becoming increasingly self-conscious. "It, uh, it was a miniature robot. They filmed it on a scaled-down set. It wasn't really that big." she tried to explain.  
  
"And what was that film he won the Oscar for? _Black River_ , wasn't it? That was a phenomenal film."  
  
"It was one of his favorite jobs, yeah." mentioned Burton, and proceeded to recount how, during the shoot, she had assisted with the building and waterproofing of the man-eating eels.  
      
McCullough nodded quickly, hanging on her every word, and when she made it clear that she had nothing else to add to her anecdote he said "We did a bit of animation for the video game based on the film, you know. That was one of our best projects, I think. Of course our models didn't look anywhere near as good as the ones in the film. Blame it on poor in-game rendering, if you like. Practical effects are always better than CGI, aren't they. Ah well. But I suppose that makes us connected, in a way, doesn't it." he suggested happily.  
      
And it was then that it suddenly struck her. Leaning toward him, she quietly asked if he just so happened to be a video game designer. He grinned proudly at the question.  
      
"Regeneration Games. Head designer and programmer." and he gave a little bow in his seat.  
      
"And are you here for the dinosaurs, too?" she continued keenly.  
      
Once again, his face took on a look of unexpected wonder.  
      
"Aye!" he cried, and then clamped both hands over his mouth. Whispering through his fingers, "I mean, aye. But we'd best keep mum about that, don't you think?"      
      
And he pointed toward the flight attendants at the front of the craft, now totally immersed in their safety demonstration.  
      
"Mmm." Borton concurred, lips pursed.  
      
"Oh, but how do you like that, eh? You're the entertainment specialist they picked. They never went by names. Ha! I'd have never guessed it. I'll be going on holiday with the daughter of Christopher Borton. How fantastic!"  
      
He thrust his fist into the air triumphantly, and before she could stop herself she laughed, deciding all at once that she rather liked this boisterous Scotsman, even though his mannerisms were a little on the eccentric side.  
      
For a time both parties were silent until the signal was given to buckle seat belts and put tray-tables up into their correct positions.  
      
"We'll be lifting off soon." advised McCullough. "Have you ever been to Firdos?"  
      
She shook her head.  
      
"No? Oh, you're going to love it. Been there six times, myself. Twice to the Viking-realm, three times to the Zombie-realm. Lots of running, terrific exercise. And only once to the Pirate-realm. Didn't much care for that one." and he put his hand up level and rocked it back and forth. "Got seasick. Speaking of which – "  
  
It was a well known fact that the Firdos hovercraft had the latest inertial dampeners, designed specifically to eliminate all instances of turbulence, resulting in a smooth, enjoyable ride for it's passengers. Even with this knowledge on hand, having never been aboard the craft before, Borton had come equipped with a pack of dramamine just in case she happened to be the only person for which the inertial dampeners did not work.  
      
McCullough, on the other hand, had three packs with him, and Borton watched in deep curiosity as he withdrew one pack from his jacket pocket, poked a handful of pills out of their individual tin wrappers and swallowed them together in a single, struggling gulp.    
  
"There. That's better." he sighed contently. "But yes, don't get me wrong. The Pirate-realm was okay. I mean, I had a lovely time once I got my sea-legs. Was captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge, you know."  
      
"Black Beard's ship, isn't it?"  
  
"Aye, that'll be the one, yes sir. And I was a fierce buccaneer, too, if you'll pardon my bragging. Boarded three different merchant vessels, got to dig up treasure. Even took on The Man Eater, I did."  
  
"The Man Eater?" Borton repeated, curious.  
  
"That's your rival ship. Has a flag with a massive shark's head on it, and it's captained by the dread-pirate Hektor. And he actually existed, you know. You can find history books about him in libraries and that. Quite a mean fellow, too, if I recall. Legend goes that his first crew turned mutinous, and marooned him on an island full of cannibals. He was there a whole year before a schooner saw the bonfire and picked him up. And do you know what they found when they went ashore?"  
  
She shook her head, captivated.  
  
"He'd eaten all the cannibals." explained McCullough, voice eerily low. "I remember, he came at us with cannon fire from across the reef, and we managed to sink him within the hour. But not before he boarded us and had at me with a sword."  
  
"Jesus." she breathed, "You mean he actually attacked you? Weren't you afraid?"  
  
"Nah." scoffed McCullough with a brush of his hand. "I'd been through worse in the Zombie-realm, and anyway, I ran him through when we fought. See, they're all designed to loose. The robots, I mean. They could never actually hurt a guest. Would go against their programming. Even the zombies never really run fast enough to catch you."  
  
"Ah," said Borton, staring off in deep consideration. She wondered just how violently the dinosaurs might act.  
  
"But anyway, can you believe it though? About the, eh-hem, the new bit?"  
  
"It's pretty unbelievable, yeah." she agreed. "I'm interested to see it all up and running."  
  
"Well I thought for sure they'd do something in outer space, if I'm totally honest. Something to do with planetary exploration, maybe throw in some aliens or a worm hole. But I suppose that's just me. I'm a bit of a sci-fi nut, you know."  
  
She shrugged.  
  
"Maybe they'll do something along those lines with the next addition." she proposed.  
  
"Maybe." he reflected, smiling down at her.  
  
Eventually the intercom was activated, and the pilot instructed the crew to make final preparations for takeoff. Borton held her breath and glued her eyes to the window, excitement causing her to fidget and sway in her seat.  
  
While take-off was slightly jarring (the strait vertical lift into the sky was something akin to being on a massive elevator and shooting very quickly to the top floor), the rest of the flight proved surprisingly gentle, and had it not been for the scenery whizzing by the window at blurring speeds, she may have forgotten the craft was even moving at all. Contrary to her fears, she did not get sick. McCullough, however, went back and forth between instances of lively vigor, and debilitating nausea. More than once he was forced to politely excused himself from their conversation in order to rush gracelessly to the back of the craft where the bathrooms were. Borton felt sorry for him, and during these bouts of illness did her best to make him comfortable and provide a useful distraction.  
  
About mid-way through the flight, the attendants directed the passengers to put on their earphones.  
  
Borton gave McCullough a confused look.  
  
"Orientation." he explained, placing the small padded buds into his ears.  
  
Borton followed his example, but after waiting several moments she heard no sound. She tugged at McCullough's sleeve and went to speak but all at once the Firdos theme from the commercials cut in, loudly filling her ears.  
  
A disembodied voice began talking about each of the different Realms.  
  
"–elcome to Firdos." it announced, monotone.  
  
Her eyes were quickly drawn to the seat in front of her. A picture was being projected onto the surface from the ceiling. Shots of a massive wooden ship with enormous sales, navigating a lengthy stretch of ocean tide, and edited in between were images of singing pirates on board, swabbing the decks, climbing the rigging, loading the cannons and cleaning their swords.  
  
"The Pirate-realm is a complete re-creation of the coast off the island Tortuga, during the mid 1600s when piracy was abundant. Here it is possible to relive the excitement and stresses of life at sea to the fullest. The Pirate-realm is an existence of lawless violence, a society of pistols, swords, and action."  
  
The screen was filled with cannon fire and the clinking of dueling swords. Seconds later this scene was replaced by an otherworldly setting, a stone castle carved into the side of a floating mountain, and jutting from it's entrance a long bridge made of vibrant crystal bricks. Inside the castle was a large, rectangular table covered with dishes designed to make the viewer's mouth water, and seated all around it were large, burly men with ridiculous beards and oversized weapons, stuffing their faces and shouting in Shakespearian lingo.  
  
"This is the Viking-realm, where we have reconstructed the mythical kingdom of Asgard – home of the Norse Gods Odin and Thor. A world of chivalry and combat, romance and excitement. Here the traveler can experience the sensual, relaxed existence known only by the Gods."  
  
Another change of scenery, and the exquisite Viking kingdom was hastily replaced by the burnt ruins of a grayish city. Stumbling through the decrepit streets were hoards of decaying corpses, vicious and ugly, shambling clumsily toward some unseen destination.     
  
"Then we have the Zombie-realm: A desolate dystopia where the diseased and resurrected bodies of the dead provide a thrilling obstacle for travelers who want to push themselves mentally and physically, in order to survive the end of the world."  
  
The zombies vanished and now an illustration of the island was being projected for the tourists to study. The landmass was circularly shaped, and was divided not by sides but by layers. Apparently Borton had been wrong in her assumption that the various realms shared the surface of the island. Instead, it appeared as though the island consisted of several floors, some of which obviously went below sea-level, and each containing a specific realm. That mean that every environment was completely controlled.  
  
"All together, these resorts comprise Firdos. The most exciting vacation spot in the history of man. The whole spectrum of technology has been employed in Firdos for the vacationer's pleasure. Expensive and unusual, Firdos is not for everyone. But for those who choose it, it is truly a unique and rewarding experience."  
  
Now they were being shown happy customers, smiling wives and husbands, laughing men and women in pirate and viking fatigue. Borton wondered how many of them were paid actors, and how many had actually been filmed at the resort.  
  
"We are sure you will enjoy your stay at Firdos. While here, feel free to indulge your every whim. The realms of Firdos exist for you, the guest. Nothing can go wrong."  
  
The projection flickered and died, and it was then that Borton noticed the attendants were going up and down the aisles, handing out color-coded wristbands. The colors matched with the corresponding realm each person would be visiting. Orange for the Pirate-realm, purple for the Viking-realm, and green for the Zombie-realm. Borton and McCullough received black wristbands.  
  
In the end the hovercraft touched down at Firdos some thirty minutes after it's departure from the mainland, and while the sudden, calculated drop into the open docking clamps was startling enough to elicit a small yelp of fear from Borton, McCullough had warned her beforehand to brace herself for the jog. Now he let her cling to his arm until the craft came to a complete stop, and seemed delighted when she refused to let go, eyes shut until he had assured her that the other passengers were standing and reaching for their suitcases.  
      
Afterward, they were led off the craft and down a short hallway, onto a wide elevator. Having developed a connection of friendliness on the flight, and being that he had a great deal more experience then she did when it came to Firdos, she decided not to separate herself from McCullough – but rather, followed close behind him like a duckling with it's parent, backpack slung haphazardly over one shoulder and making sure not to loose him in the throng of other disembarking guests.  
  
When the whole of the horde had gathered in the elevator Borton and McCullough found themselves toward the back, squeezed unpleasantly between two portly Canadian tourists. Borton watched as the doors slid shut and saw as the flight attendant accompanying them took her winged badge and bent it in such a way that it became key-shaped. The attendant inserted the key into a slot just beside the elevator's operating panel, and the touch-screen display lit to life, presenting six optional buttons to pick from. The first option, currently the brightest, read _Docking Bay Level_. The second, third and forth were clearly the main realms of the park, while the fifth, sixth and seventh were left unnamed.  
  
The flight attendant pressed a nimble finger against the second button –  _the Pirate-realm_ , and with that the elevator lurched into motion. Several seconds later it stopped.  
  
"High speed?" whispered Borton, and Tenant nodded in confirmation, eyes twinkling.  
  
She held her breath as the doors opened, and a blast of humidity warmed her face, instantly making her sweat. Beyond the open doorway was what looked like the inside of a tropical island hut, but much, much larger. The roof was made of dried straw and palm-tree leaves, and the floor was a coating of pure white sand. Attached to thick tree trunks that acted as support beams were torches, burning brightly and lighting the hut, and just beyond the thin canvas walls she swore she could hear seagulls and the crashing of waves against the beach.  
  
If she inhaled deeply enough, she could even smell the saltwater.  
  
The scene was immediately suggestive of the Caribbean islands, and she thought she might like to explore the Pirate-realm first, after the testing was complete.  
  
"Welcome to the Pirate-realm," announced the flight attendant. "Those that are currently wearing an orange wristband may exit the elevator now."  
  
She watched as several tourists, businessmen and bankers mostly, left the elevator and were greeted by a quartet of pretty pirate-wenches offering goblets of rum.    
  
The doors shut and the attendant pressed the button for the next level.  
  
Again the elevator descended, and Borton looked around to find McCullough staring down at her.  
  
"They were robots, you know." he said mischievously.  
  
She did a double-take at the now closed doors and gawked.  
  
"Christ, they were?" and he nodded, cheeky grin spreading across his face. "How could you tell?"  
  
"Well you can't. Not really."  
  
"I'll say. Makes my dad's work look like crap." she muttered unhappily.  
  
"Nonsense." he argued, "He made much better than that. I mean, okay, so they're nearly indistinguishable from real people. But they aren't, not really." he added discreetly, and held his hand out to show her. "Right there, below the inside wrist, they have these brands. Little birthmarks in the shape of a star. That's the only way to tell them apart."  
  
She frowned, unable to decide if she liked the realism or if it was just a pinch too uncanny valley for her. At any rate she decided that, after her impromptu vacation, she would endeavor to build better looking robots. Clearly it was possible, and she was certainly willing to dedicate herself to the task.  
      
When the elevator doors opened a second time, they revealed an archway beautifully decorated with dark marble and gold trimmings. Magnificent statues of various Viking gods lined the walls, each at least a hundred feet tall, and standing just inside the entrance were a trio of muscled soldiers sporting silver armor and flowing capes. Two of them wore winged helmets and carried weighty swords, while the third, the one closest to the doors, modeled a pair of outrageous antlers and held a spear almost twice as tall as himself.  
  
Borton stood on tip-toe, peering past the crowd and trying to catch a glimpse of one of the closest guard's wrists, hoping to spot the star-shaped mark. For a fraction of a second her eyes locked with his – a pair of bright green orbs that seemed to glow from within – and right away she was better able to understand the appeal of the Viking realm. But then the attendant was making her announcement, and Borton was being pushed out of the way by one of the other guests.  
  
Again, the elevator was deserted, this time by a gaggle of giggling women. When the doors opened for the third time, there were audible gasps of astonishment from those still occupying it.  
  
Beyond the doorway was a desolate, burnt out mall lobby covered in debris and littered with broken glass. The remaining guests, save for Borton, McCullough, and three others, stepped out of the elevator and onto the cracked tile floor. They were soon led away by a band of survivors carrying makeshift weaponry.  
  
When the doors finally shut, Borton sighed a breath of relief. She hadn't thought an amusement park could look so bleak. She shuddered. When all was said and done she doubted she'd be asking for a year-long pass to the Zombie-realm. That much was certain.  
  
The attendant pressed the fifth button, and the elevator whizzed along, although the time it took to arrive at the next level was considerably longer than the last three instances had been.  
  
"Welp," began McCullough, hands in his pockets and rocking back on his feet in the newly freed space of the elevator. "I guess it's just us left. Eh, gang?"  
  
Upon hearing his words Borton took the opportunity to look around, and saw for the first time the faces of her fellow vacationers. The first specimen she observed was nearly as tall and slim as McCullough, but she could tell from his face alone (a pale, bored scowl under a frock of dark, curly hair) that he was in no way as chipper. How he could be at Firdos and not be smiling was beyond her comprehension.    
  
Moving her sites away from this unpleasant character, she studied the next individual; a short, bearded man with spectacles whose posture and constant darting of the eyes denoted an ever-present nervousness. He, at least, was smiling, but Borton had met enough actors to know that behind the smile was something else. A kind of poorly hidden, sad intelligence that might have made him miserable when others weren't looking.  
  
And finally, the third vacationer, was very unlike any of the other men in the elevator. There was a tough, rugged quality about him that caught her attention right away. Square chin, bow-legged, he looked like a working man who knew the harshness of the world even despite his youthful appearance.  
  
Standing amongst the four of them there in the elevator the realization struck her quite abruptly that she was the only woman in the group.  
  
She pondered this a moment, wondering if it had been deliberate on the part of Firdos, and, after scanning herself for any unease caused by the situation (she found none), decided that there was no reason to complain. While it was true that she had no brothers, she had worked with men for nearly all of her career, and had never had trouble getting on with them provided they showed her the necessary amount of respect.

While she inspected them, they inspected her, as well as one another, until at last McCullough stepped forward and offered his hand to shake.  
  
"Errol McCullough. Regeneration Games. Head designer."  
  
A beat.  
  
The scowling man approached him, took his hand, and shook it once.  
  
"Vernon Abrams." he said curtly, and retreated to the back of the elevator, clearly uninterested in any further interaction.  
      
"From the BBC?" asked McCullough, ignoring the other man's thorny gaze. "I knew I recognized you. From that travel show, right? Boy, two celebrities in one go. How do you figure."  
  
The second to introduce himself was the bow-legged man.  
  
"Doctor Michael Quinn." he announced with a slight Texas drawl, and took McCullough's hand in a firm shake. "They asked me to come here on account of my being a digger."  
  
"You mean a paleontologist." McCullough corrected.  
  
"Digger's the layman's term." he clarified gruffly.  
  
Then it was the bearded man's turn.  
  
"Henry Irvine. I'm, uh, I'm a child psychologist. And, uh, sometimes I – I write books. Books for children." he stammered timidly.  
  
McCullough took his hand and smiled warmly at him.  
  
"Good to meet you, Henry. This is Joanna Borton, by the way." and he released Irvine, and took Borton by the shoulders. He steered her in front of them and stepped aside.

"Daughter of _thee_ Christopher Borton. The one who did the effects for Wayward Souls and Mountains of Madness."  
  
A round of mumbled hellos, and McCullough seemed to deflate. Clearly he held her in a higher regard than the others did, but Borton was hardly bothered by it.  
  
Shrugging, she said "You can call me Jo, if you want."  
  
To her astonishment, Abrams spoke up.  
  
"Very sorry about your father." he remarked simply, although his tone did not sound sympathetic. "He was a true artist."  
  
Borton stared at him, unsure of what to say. She had expected the topic of her father's death to come up eventually during her stay at Firdos, but she hadn't counted on it coming up this soon.    
  
"Thank you." she said, and her lips twisted into a tight smile.  
  
"The park's for kids, right?" she heard Quinn inquire, and was glad of the subject change.  
  
"Supposedly." replied Irvine.  
  
"Then where are the kids? Shouldn't we be testing with kids?" Quinn pointed out.  
   
"That will likely be the next trial," the flight attendant piped up, startling the others. They had all clearly forgotten she was there. "After they've taken your comments into consideration."  
  
It was just at the moment that the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open for the fourth and final time. The five members of the testing party went silent, and one by one approached the edge of the elevator. Together they stared, amazed, into the vestibule.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The testers arrive at the Prehistoric-realm and choose their guide dinosaurs before officially entering the jungle.

  _. . . Saturday (cont): Three days before total systems failure . . ._

 

The vestibule for the Prehistoric-realm was far blander than any of the others had been, and not nearly as impressive. Overall it lacked color and suffered from far too much lighting, and the effect it could otherwise achieve was overshadowed by the clear lack of thought that had gone into it. In addition, it's central theme was only vaguely apparent. Adorning the pale, beige walls were stark reliefs of bones, the curved skeletons of dinosaur fossils set into the mortar. Save for this and a lizard-like footprint pattern carved into the floor tiling under foot, there was hardly any other decor. The end result was a boring, minimalist setting that paled in comparison to it's predecessors. The whole sight left Borton feeling slightly disheartened. Supposing they had put as little effort into the rest of the Prehistoric-realm?  
  
On the left hand side of the room was a row of ovular kiosks, eight in all, the screens of which showed revolving Firdos logos. And standing directly in the center of the vestibule was a young woman, clad in a black blazer and satin blouse. Her long, blonde hair hung loosely over a pearl necklace, and her face, incredibly pretty, seemed to radiate genuine congeniality. Borton instantly began looking at the woman's wrists, trying to find the tell-tale mark.  
  
"Hello, folks. I'm Evelyn Dormer, head of public relations for the park."  she declared graciously. "Unfortunately, we don't yet have greeters for this section of the resort, so for the time being I'll be acting as your greeter."  
  
She stepped toward them, arms outstretched. "Before we begin, I would like to personally thank you all for volunteering your valuable time to help us with this trial. We here at Firdos greatly appreciate your assistance, and we hope that we can give you a memorable holiday here in the Prehistoric-realm."  
  
As Domer inhaled Borton used the break to step nervously forward, hand raised.  
  
Domer smiled, "You have a question?"  
  
"Not to be rude or anything but, uh, are you a – ?" and she held up her wrists questioningly, hoping that she hadn't stepped out of line by asking.  
  
Dormer shook her head, still smiling.  
  
"No, I'm not a robot. Sorry to disappoint you." she laughed. It hadn't been the answer Borton was expecting, or the reaction, for that matter, but it got her to thinking.  
  
Did the robots of Firdos know they were robots? She would have to make it a point to check when she actually came into contact with one.  
  
Domer's voice echoed off the walls of the vestibule. "Are there any other questions before we start?"  
  
Silence from the group.  
  
"Well if and when you _do_ have questions, please don't hesitate to ask them. We here at Firdos want you to feel totally comfortable during your stay. That's the point of this session, since you didn't get a proper in-flight orientation. Now, if you'll please step this way, we'll get you signed in and ready to pick a tour guide."  
  
The five of them followed Domer over to the set of kiosks, and one by one took their place in front of them.  
  
"I hope you all still have the wristbands you were given prior to entering the park?"  
  
A grumbled response in the affirmative, with some of them going so far as to remove their wristbands and hold them up as proof.  
  
"Fantastic. Please despot your wristbands into the collection tray at the side of your kiosk. You will then be asked to give your full name to the computer."  
  
Each of them did as they were instructed.  
  
Borton tugged the wristband off and hesitantly dropped it into the metal tray, and watched as it disappeared down the shoot. She wondered if the other guests had done similarly when they had entered the previous realms. A moment later and the kiosk screensaver vanished, revealing an interactive keyboard. Curious, she quickly typed her name into the computer and hit enter, prompting a quick scan of accuracy and then a secondary display to appear, where she was required to add the rest of her personal information. Then a sub-menu, highlighting a detailed survey that included questions asking about any medication she might be on, if there was a history of heart or liver disease in her family, or if she suffered from any major food allergies or other potential health conditions. Ultimately, she was required to list not one but three separate emergency contacts before she could move to the final section. She wound up typing in the name of her current intern as the first, a producer she knew relatively well as the second, and finally, unable to conjure up a third name, entered a false name and phony number for the third, hoping no one would notice.  
  
Following this, Domer primed them to pick a guide, and sure enough, a fourth display materialized on the screen showcasing a dozen or so dinosaur silhouettes, some of them grayed out and otherwise un-choosable.  
  
"Your guide will act as your personal caretaker during your stay in the Prehistoric-realm." continued Domer, sounding somewhat rehearsed in the delivery of her dialogue. "Unfortunately, not all options are available at this time, so I'm afraid you will be somewhat limited in your choices. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you."  
  
Borton squinted down at the tiny silhouettes and, after a moment or two of examining them, decided they were too indistinct to easily tell apart. Picking one at random caused it to enlarge and simultaneously unveil the creature it represented, full-sized and in color, along with a small blurb of facts regarding the dinosaur's natural habitat and how long ago it had existed. If she scrolled from side to side the image shrank again slightly, and was put beside an average sized human, depicting the differences in height. She noted that some of the guides would be smaller than her, while some of them would be just as tall, if not slightly taller. She wasn't sure which facts she should take into account when it came to making her decision, so she made a note to memorize all of them just to be on the safe side.  
  
After browsing through nearly every option, she chanced a quick look back at the other members of the group, the majority of which hadn't yet reached the stage of choosing. The only other person whose kiosk showcased the same selection menu was Quinn, and having spotted this she made up her mind to flag him over.  
  
"Need help?" he offered as he came up behind her.  
  
"You're the expert. Which one should I choose?" she inquired helplessly.  
  
"Whichever one you want, but you might want to hurry. I think they only have a few in stock, and when I picked mine the picture disappeared from the screen." he warned.  
  
"What did you pick?"  
  
"Gallimimus." he replied nonchalantly, and she pointed to one of the silhouettes on her screen for confirmation.     
  
"You mean that one?"  
  
It looked like a large, featherless goose.  
  
"That's the one, yeah." he chuckled.  
  
"So should I pick one like that, or something different?" she pleaded, utterly lost.  
  
The main dinosaurs she had anticipated, the ones she could easily identify by name, were only a handful, and they were not among those offered. She was so distracted by this quandary that she failed to notice the selection growing smaller as the rest of the group began to make their choices at the other kiosks.  
  
Finally, Quinn stepped forward and reached toward her screen, picking one of only three remaining dinosaurs.  
  
"There." he said as the picture came up. "How about that one? It's a dromaesaurid theropod that was around during the Cretaceous Period." he informed her.  
  
Turning to the screen she saw a medium-sized, brightly plumed reptile, hind legs stretched out in an arcing jump and rigid tail curled up behind it. The fierce toe-claw of each foot was pulled back to swipe, and it's mouth was open in a half snarl, gums lined with rows of small, needle-sharp teeth.     
  
"From Mongolia. See?" he added, directing her attention to the text block beside the illustration.  
  
The dinosaur looked far from friendly, but to Borton's surprise it did look familiar, although she couldn't recall from where exactly.  
  
"Velociraptor." she read aloud, confident she had pronounced it right when she received no correction from Quinn. "Means _bird of prey_. They would hunt in packs and use strategy based ambushes to take down dinosaurs twice their size."  
  
She looked to Quinn uncertainly.  
  
"Well, it's better than nothing." said Quinn.  
  
"I guess." she replied, slightly disconcerted.  
  
From across the room, Domer notified them that they had two minutes remaining to pick their guide. Quickly, Borton tapped the image of the velociraptor, entering it into the system as her guide, and watched as the screen of her kiosk then went dark.  
  
"Is everybody ready, then? Wonderful." she heard Domer say. "And now, if you would all please follow me, you'll be taken to your hotel inside the Prehistoric-realm."  
  
The five group members fell in line behind Domer and, luggage in tow, followed her up a short flight of steps and toward a set of large swinging doors that seemed to part automatically as Domer neared them. Beyond the vestibule lay a sweeping expanse of jungle that looked incredibly authentic, and as Borton listened she heard the faint calls of what must have been exotic birds sounding in the distance.  
  
They were lead onto a stone terrace, at the curb of which sat five, huge triceratops saddled for riding. The very first dinosaurs of the realm.  
  
Here the group paused by the doorway to take in this phenomenal site. The beasts were enormous, each about twenty-seven feet long and roughly ten feet high. Their horns jutted out of their skulls at strait angles, and their tails swayed patiently from side to side as they waited for their riders to mount them.  
  
Borton was unaware of how brightly she was smiling, unable to help it. Her inner child was doing backflips of glee somewhere inside of her, and on the outside she felt like a garage mechanic who had just received an invitation to touch the hood of some rare and priceless automobile. It was understandable why the people at Firdos had felt it necessary to make the vestibule as modest as it was, as anything more embellished may have taken away from the grandiose site held within.  
  
Staring, she remembered a host of machines, all the toys she had ever taken apart as a child, all the puppets she had ever built alongside her father – and how, compared with this current spectacle, they were nowhere near as stunning. She had never seen a more impressive exhibition of working animatronics in her entire life. The expertise and skill that had gone into building them was blatantly apparent, and dwarfed even her father's abilities, although she hated to acknowledge it.  
  
Suddenly she recalled the musician Salieri, and vaguely wondered how he must have felt when he had first heard Mozart play, all those centuries ago. At once she knew that no matter how good she became at her profession, how much she studied, how often she practiced and pushed – even if she became the best she could possibly be – she would never be able to produce the kind of masterpiece that now stood before her. It was both inspiring and depressing.  
  
Upon sharper inspection of the robots she concluded that, miraculously, there was no sign of poor craftsmanship, no clue to give away that these beautiful animals were not really animals at all. Visibly she saw no tearing of the rubber skin, no scale out of place, no displacement of balance or un-realistic movement that might destroy the illusion that had been cast by the mere sight of them. Listening, she could hear no squeaking clink of rusty gears, no off-putting whir of cogs or cylinders, no rustling of the hydraulics hidden within. Only the deep, guttural snorting of beasts that had been brought back from the dead by way of technological magic.    
  
She might as well have been looking at a real triceratops, though the more rational side of her brain refused to allow her to suspend her disbelief to that extent.  
  
She gawked together with the others for a solid six minutes before she was roused from her trance by a sudden movement beside her. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of McCullough advancing toward one of the triceratops, and was even more taken aback when he placed his hand against it's mighty ribcage to feel it's mimicked heartbeat and was met by no discouragement whatsoever. Soon after he was joined by Quinn, who looked as though he was fighting back tears as he put his hand against the triceratops' wide, beaked muzzle, and received a happy lick of welcome from it shoe-sized tongue. Eventually all five of them came down and began interacting with it, petting it softly about the body and fawning over it as though it were a new breed of gigantic puppy.  
  
After a short while Domer intervened, explaining that the triceratops were there to carry them to the hotel.  
  
"You'll have everything you need there. Hot water, toilet facilities, comfortable beds, and a single land-line phone for emergencies."  
  
"Will there be food?" asked Irvine, rousing a chorus of hearty bleats from the rest of the group.    
  
It was an appropriate enough question, thought Borton as she checked her watch. It was only five after ten in the morning, but they had been served no in-flight meal, and if the others had arrived at the airport as early as she had they were likely to have skipped breakfast as well. She heard her stomach growl at the thought of warm food and shifted in her boots.  
  
"Each room is equipped with our patented automatic-chef dispenser. It's programmed with over two thousand different recipes." cited Domer.  
  
"Even pie?" Quinn inquired eagerly.  
  
"Pie, cake, anything you like." Domer promised.  
  
One by one each member of the group climbed onto the back of their preferred triceratops, some more gracefully than others. Irvine in particular had a difficult time getting up onto his triceratops, due mostly to his short stature and clumsy gestures, and had to be assisted by both McCullough and Abrams. Borton hoped that, when it came time to cater to the children, surely the robotic greeters would help in that regard.  
  
Struggling with the reigns, Irvine began to complain.  
  
"This is much too high for little kids. And how do I even steer this thing?"  
  
"Just like a horse, I reckon." Quinn proclaimed, demonstrating for them by nudging his mount forward several heavy steps and bringing it to a halt again. As easily said as done, Borton discovered, when she too was able to make her triceratops saunter and stop with a single tapping of her heels against it's chest.  
  
Irvine frowned, "I've never ridden a horse in my life."  
  
"This is no horse." cackled McCullough, blatantly ecstatic. Pointing a finger into the air he cried "Onward, mighty steed, and into battle!"  
  
Alarmed, Irvine angrily hushed him. "Don't spook it. Jesus, do you want me to fall off and break my neck?"  
  
Abrams sighed wearily and rolled his eyes.  
  
Ignoring their antics, Domer assured the riders not to worry. "These transport units are designed to get you to your destination quickly and without incident. Once there, you'll find your guides waiting for you in your individual rooms."  
  
With that, the group set off down the jungle path with Quinn in the lead, McCullough coming in at a close second, and both Borton and Abrams traveling side by side at the center. Irvine brought up the rear, clearly uncomfortable atop the hulking herbivore and not wishing to make it move any faster.  
  
Domer waved after them.  
  
"Remember," she called out, "The Prehistoric-realm exists just for you! Do whatever you like, and have fun!"  
  
  
  
  
 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joanna is introduced to her personal dinosaur tour guide, the velociraptor Thomas, who seems more than a little desperate to please.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the raptor's 'luminous green eyes' are a minor nod to Tom Hiddleston's magnificent blue-green eye color, it's more a direct reference to the androids of Delos from WestWorld, whose eyes shined/glowed a kind of menacing silver color when the guests weren't looking.

_. . . Saturday (cont): Three days before total systems failure . . ._

 

Up until the late twentieth century, it was not widely known that dinosaurs had more in common with modern day birds than they did with reptiles.  
  
But the gradual unearthing of these facts caused a shift in the way the public perceived dinosaurs, forcing many to re-think how the mighty lizards may have looked and acted.  
  
One could argue that the a majority of these similarities were purely superficial, but nevertheless uncanny. The support of feet with three toes, the posteriorly stiffened tail, the S-shaped curve of the neck, the strap-like shoulder blade, the backward-facing pubic bone, the elongated arms and forelimbs, the wide openings in the skull, the flexible wrists, the overall hollowness of the thin-walled bones. It was all very birdlike.  
  
But it was far more difficult to ignore the behavioral parallels between birds and dinosaurs.  
  
As with most birds, dinosaurs would lay and hatch eggs. And whereas before, most dinosaurs had been depicted as cold and callous parents who would abandon their carefully hidden nests once their clutch had finished incubating, the theory which suggested dinosaurs (like birds) reared their young was ultimately proven correct in the mid 2030's when a large sum of evidence came to light in the form of newly discovered fossils.  
  
From that point on, dinosaurs ceased to be the scaly creatures so often shown in history books with tongues sticking out to taste the air like giant iguanas. New verification had confirmed that most of the better known species had in fact been caring parents – and now the history books were full of birdlike carnivores whose hunched figures and feathery forms were followed in a strait line by their offspring. Like a row of compliant baby chicks.  
  
The engineers at Firdos had taken this into account when designing the animatronic replicas that would go on to populate the Prehistoric-realm. In fact, these avian qualities were not just referenced for movement and appearance, but for personality and conduct as well.  
  
The smaller guide models provided an excellent example of this clever consideration. Traits from parrots and other tame house birds were integrated into the core programming of the artificial intelligence in nearly half the dromaeosaurid designs, and while this meant that the guide dinosaurs were unusually friendly toward those they interacted with, it also meant that they had the unfortunate habit of imprinting, often with the first human being they came into direct contact with.  
  
A note on imprinting: it is generally described as the psychological process by which a baby bird learns who its parents are. Hatchling birds typically accept the first moving animal or thing that they see as their parent, and once imprinting has occurred, a strong bond is formed. For example – if the bird is being hand fed by a human, the bird will assume the human to be its parent.  
  
Of course, the imprinting flaw inherent in the guide models of the Prehistoric-realm was not necessarily in the sense of a child-and-parent relationship. But, rather, in the sense of courtship.  
  
This was an unexpected result of the intermingling of human personality traits (specifically, those taken from the AI templates of the kinder, love-model robots already at the park) with those of birds, the true extent of which had not been fully witnessed by the engineers during the building phase. Otherwise they may have taken some minor steps to correct it. As it was, the guide models had the potential to bond strongly with their wards in the same way some exotic parrots have the habit of falling in love (both emotionally and physically) with their owners.  
  
This may have been why, when Borton initially activated the velociraptor by reaching out to shake it's apparently-sleeping form, it awoke with an instantaneous, overwhelming affection for her.  
  
Borton, on the other hand, was totally unaware of how complex the design for the raptor's personality was, and was altogether unsuspecting of just how much of an attachment it would form.  
  
When she had opened the door to her hotel room and found it there on the surface of her bed, quiet and perfectly still atop the freshly ironed sheets, her first instinct had been to assume the thing had malfunctioned and simply broken down there (of all places). It took several slow seconds to register that the dinosaur lying before her was in fact the one from the kiosk screen, the one she had specifically chosen to act as her personal tour guide.  
  
 _He must have been placed there by the park technicians._  
  
Quickly, she made her way over to the raptor, switching on the small lamp beside the bed and leaning forward, like a doctor over an unconscious patient. Intrigued, she eyed it's unmoving form. There was no gentle up-and-down of the torso to indicate the raptor was even on. She clapped her hands and snapped her fingers expectantly, but the raptor remained motionless.  
  
Borton sighed, confused.  
  
The ride through the jungle had gone quickly enough. She had been given the perfect chance to survey the realism of the place. On several occasions she had caught herself actually thinking that she was moving through a genuine rainforest, and when they had finally reached the hotel – a wide, rounded wooden structure built into an enormous tree, with a timber roof that ended in a triangular apex – she had been even more impressed.  
  
But now, standing in her dimly lit hotel room and staring down at the raptor, she felt almost disappointed. It occurred to her that the build-up was very misleading, and she allowed a pang of guilt to briefly overtake her.  
  
 _Is this it? Is this all it is? It can't be broken. Christ, I should have never left Hollywood._  
  
Stubbornly, she pushed the negative thought out of her mind and, with renewed determination, began to contemplate her options. After all, she was the daughter of academy-award-winning Christopher Borton, was she not? She dealt with problematic robots all the time, and had done all her life. If this one was broken then, by god, she was going to fix it and get on with her damn vacation. She hadn't come all this way just to be let down.     
  
The outer walls of the building were large windows that displayed an excellent view of the plant life outside. Had it not been for the doubly thick curtains, they would have provided very little privacy. Motorized, the curtains hung from a metal rod and could be operated using an electric lever. Borton felt along the wall until she found it, and quickly sent the curtains sweeping back. Sunlight flooded the front-facing side of the spacious hotel room, leaving the other half bathed in darkness.  
  
Borton returned to the raptor and began searching for an on-switch. She found none, and decided it made more sense to try and find it's batteries first, and check if they were fully charged. Hesitantly, she reached out to feel behind the base of it's neck (a common place of battery storage in her own robots), and that was when the raptor came online.  
  
It barked, once – a sound that made her think of a coughing dog – and jerked it's head off the pillow with such unexpected speed that Borton's immediate reaction was to retreat. But before she could right herself she became tangled in her own feet and fell backwards onto the hardwood floor. When she regained a sitting position she found the raptor staring curiously down at her with wide, glassy eyes.  
  
"Hello." it chirped playfully, and she had to stifle a giggle at the absurdity of it all. The engineers, for whatever reason, had given it an accent, and not only that, but she had originally pictured it with a child's voice. Instead, it had clearly been fitted with the low timber of an adult man. And while Borton found it very surreal, it's tone was not necessarily unpleasant.  
  
"My name is Thomas." it announced, and in a single spring of motion it was off the bed and on it's feet, looming over her.  
  
At this angle it appeared almost menacing. A stark silhouette, backlit by the bedside lamp, cocking it's head at a strange angle – not unlike Poe's raven. It's eyes, piercing green, were particularly striking in the semi-darkness, made luminous from some interior source. _The main processors_ , she assumed.  
  
Squinting up to meet the slit pupils of it's glossy gaze, Borton was privy to a closer look at the true detail that had gone into it's construction.The kiosk illustration had given her the impression that it would be slightly shorter than herself, but rearing up on it's hind legs, as it was doing now, it reached almost six and a half feet tall. Not only that, but the tail was much longer as well, and seemed to twitch and jerk at odd intervals. The feathers on the tail and arms had been drawn much more colorfully on the kiosk screen, whereas, on the actual model, they were a muted, grayish tan, and far less pronounced – a thin layer of peach fuzz, barely perceived above the smooth, dry scales. It's snout, too, was slightly thicker and less rounded at the tip than the illustration had depicted. But as it's pink mouth opened in a kind of snarl-grin she saw that it's teeth appeared very much unchanged from the rendering.  
  
As her eyes traveled down they fell on the lengthy toe-claw of each foot, held rigidly upright at the base of the knuckle as if raised to strike. An impressive, if not potentially dangerous feature.  
  
All in all, the full sight of the raptor provoked a perfectly balanced response of threat and awe in Borton.  
  
Slowly, she began to crawl backwards until she had enough room to hoist herself up and off the floor. The raptor remained where it stood, eyes consistently on her, making small, spastic movements of it's neck and fingers. It was very like a lizard, that much she could see, and it’s head, although significantly larger and more sloping at the temples, was reminiscent of the Komodo dragons she’d seen at the San Diego zoo all those years ago with her father. There was no doubt about it. The raptor had a distinctly reptilian look, but there was also something unmistakably bird-like about it, mostly to do with the way it moved. Borton watched as it made it's way quickly forward in order to lessen the distance between them, and noted that it's gate was elegantly balanced. The sort of walk you might expect from an ostrich or a flamingo. Accenting each nimble step was the subtle bob of it’s head, and the occasional dart of the elbows, almost like it was trying to flap but couldn’t quite grasp how.  
  
The combination of these artful ticks and the relatable look of the thing made it seem incredibly lifelike, and for a split second Borton almost forgot she wasn't dealing with a real animal.  
  
Presently, the raptor – Thomas, he had called himself – was going on about his occupation.  
  
"I'll be your guide and friend during your stay in the Prehistoric-realm." he squawked energetically – and it didn't hit Borton right away, and wouldn't until slightly later. But he had told her he was hers.  
  
"What is your name?" asked Thomas.  
  
"Joanna." she replied, oddly self-conscious. She would often speak with the robots she built, especially when she was alone with them in the workshop of the studio late at night, but up until now she had never spoken with a robot that could talk back.  
  
"Joanna." Thomas acknowledged, emphasizing each syllable slowly and carefully. "Joanna." he said again, faster this time.  
  
If he was capable of displaying distinguishable expressions, she might have labeled his current countenance as something similar to tenderness.  
  
It was slightly unnerving.  
  
"I'm very happy to meet you, Joanna. Would you like me to take you on the tour? There are over twenty species of dinosaur living in the Prehistoric-realm. I would be happy to introduce you to them." encouraged Thomas.  
  
She licked her lips. "Um, not just yet, buddy."  
  
"Would you like me to help you unpack?" he offered.  
  
She thought the space between them was very small.  
  
"No thanks. I can handle it." and she shouldered her knapsack with white knuckles.  
  
Thomas simply gazed at her.  
  
An involuntary shiver ran down her spine, and she hastily scolded herself for the reaction. But the truth remained – she was strangely on-edge around the raptor, and she had started to feel very foolish for it.  
  
Mentally, she knew it was a robot, but instinctively, she was on the verge of fear. A velociraptor in and of its self was a very intimidating creature, after all, and Borton acknowledged that fact openly, even though she recognized that this particular raptor was neither real nor vicious. Even despite his friendly demeanor, Thomas was daunting in size, and somewhat sinister-looking, and such a combination did not make him a particularly appealing tour guide.  
  
Borton swallowed, forcing herself to remember that it was just an innocent machine. Only a machine. Like the kind she worked on every day for a living. Like the kind her father had won Oscars for building.  
  
Or better yet –  
  
A momentary flashback to the very first time she had ever been brought to the workshop. She had been no older than eight, and the unfinished robots (works-in-progress, her father had jokingly called them) had initially been a frightening sight for her young and untrained eyes. But her father had taken her aside and gently told her that they were nothing more than toys.  
  
"Big old toys, Jo. See?" and he had activated one (a small, hairless bear cub) for her to play with. And she had, although apprehensively at first. But by the end of the work day she and the robotic cub were nearly inseparable, and when it came time for her father to bring her home she had begged him to let her take the cub with them.  
  
Later on, her father had purposefully taken the cub apart, laying every piece and part out on a tablecloth to show her that it wasn't really alive, and that it never really could be. Together, they had put it back together again, a fun and enlightening father-daughter activity.    
  
Now, fresh with courage, Borton squared her shoulders –  
  
 _Only a machine._  
  
– and walked past the raptor, flinging her knapsack onto the bed and making the bouncy mattress jump.  
  
 _You just need to get used to him_ , she told herself. _Hell, maybe you'll learn a thing or two._  
  
After unzipping the knapsack, she began to lay her belongings out on the bed. Mostly clothing, with a few necessities (toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, deodorant, and one or two feminine items just in case). She took up her toiletries in both hands and squinted in the darkness, trying to find the bathroom.    
  
Suddenly the raptor's nose was poking at her shoulder. She started with a sharp gasp.  
  
"Would you like me to show you around your lodgings?" he proposed happily.  
  
She hadn't heard him sneak up on her.  
  
"Uh, sure. That's fine." she told him, and with that Thomas let out a perching shriek.  
  
All at once the rest of the lights came on, illuminating the hotel room. _Voice-activated_ , Borton deduced as she dropped the toiletries and slapped her hands over both ears. More than a little flustered, she waited until Thomas was finished.  
  
"Tom, was it?" she asked once it was over, anxiety replaced by mild annoyance.  
  
His eyes seemed to shine as the nickname left her lips.  
  
"Yes, Joanna?" he piped, unabashedly cheerful.  
  
She picked her toiletries back up one at a time and pointed a toothbrush in his direction.  
  
"Don't ever do that again."  
  
A single, apologetic bow of the raptor's head was enough to show her that she had been understood.  
  
After that she let him lead her around the hotel room. Thomas claimed that it was, in fact, a suite. She could believe it. It was only slightly larger than her own one-bedroom flat back in Hollywood, and far nicer. When the realm had officially opened, it would be reserved for the higher paying customers.    
  
Borton felt spoiled.  
  
The decor was reminiscent of the vestibule, and not un-agreeable. The muted dinosaur theme made better sense here, making what could have potentially been an overwhelming atmosphere into a much more inviting one.  
  
In whole the room was a single, large rectangular space divided into a number of sections. The first section, furthest from the door, was a kitchen complete with a fully functioning stove, a sink with a working disposal, a dishwasher, a cupboard full of pristine dishes, and a drawer full of expensive-looking silverware. The refrigerator and set of cabinets had been well stocked with dinosaur-themed snacking items like chocolate, fruit, eggs, milk and even four different boxes of sugary cereal, one of which came with dinosaur-shaped marshmallows and a prize inside. At the far corner of the kitchen, connected to the wall at the back edge of the island counter, was the automatic-chef (an object that looked faintly like an over-sized coffee machine, but with a larger menu pad).  
  
The second section was the sitting room, and included an enormous flat-screen television that was mounted on the wall opposite the window. Hanging just above it were four wide surround-sound speakers, and in front sat a long and comfortable-looking couch, a coffee table, and a pair of reclining chairs. For a room with just one bed it almost seemed like overkill. Maybe they expected her to have company over.  
  
 _Why not? Kids have lots of sleepovers at camp, don't they._  
  
Borton spied the remote control sitting on the arm of the couch and picked it up. Disappointingly, there was only a single channel on the television, a Firdos network offering a variety of pay-per-view films and television shows, most of which were dinosaur-related and clearly aimed at a younger audience. When the screen had gone black again Borton tossed the remote at Thomas, who skillfully caught it in his clawed hands and gently set it onto the surface of the coffee table before continuing to show her around the room.  
  
She found it fairly fascinating to watch Thomas walk about so casually in such a mundane backdrop, as though it was perfectly normal for him. It had been one thing to see a herd of triceratops sauntering through the jungle, in what might have once been their natural habitat, but to watch the velociraptor move through their current setting – a place that was likely the exact opposite of his regular environment – was truly bizarre. He clashed greatly with his surroundings, but being so seemingly out of place did not seem to deter him from performing his duties, and Borton was amazed at how well he was able to blend in. The raptor maneuvered around the furniture with true aptitude, and managed to avoid knocking several lamps over with his tail. He even went so far as to straiten a crooked picture frame with the tip of his nose.  
  
The third section of the hotel room was the bedroom. The four-poster canopy bed stood against the center of the wall, and now that the rest of the lights had been turned on Borton could see that, adorning each fluffy pillow was a mint shaped like a dinosaur ( _of course_ ). Beside the bed, adjacent to the nightstand, was a dresser where she could store her clothes. And opposite the bed by the door to the bathroom was an oakwood desk and chair, but no computer or phone. Borton thought the empty desk looked naked that way, and felt it was almost pointless to have it in the room.  
  
The bathroom was bigger than she had expected. The floor and walls were covered in a beautiful pattern of dark stone tiling, and the bathtub was part jacuzzi. She set her toiletries on the sink and walked over to it, all at once feeling very dirty and tense from the flight, and unable to think of anything besides stripping down and letting herself sink into the hot bubbling water. Sadly, the daydream was over before it had properly begun.  
  
From the kitchen, she heard Thomas ask if she was hungry. Grudgingly, she pulled herself away from the tub, silently swearing to take advantage of the luxurious resource later that night.  
  
"I would be happy to make you something to eat while you finish unpacking." Thomas told her, toe-claws tapping against the linoleum floor.    
  
As Thomas obediently worked the automatic-chef, Borton finished unpacking, and he presented her a tray of delicious smelling food just as she placed her final piece of clothing into the dresser. She ate wordlessly on her bed, allowing Thomas to sit beside her. Neither spoke. Borton was too focused on eating to think of a topic worth discussing, and Thomas seemed content to simply occupy the same space as her. Once, she tried to feed him a bit of bacon, but he shook his head in polite refusal, and Borton came to the conclusion that the robots of Firdos were not designed to eat or drink.  
  
 _At least the guide models aren't, at any rate._  
  
After the meal she decided to explore the rest of the hotel, and visit the other group members in the hopes that she would be able to sneak a peak at their guides as well.  
  
Accompanied by Thomas, she set out along the railed terrace of the hotel – although, looking out from the inside Borton could see that, truthfully, the place was more like a treehouse bungalow than anything else. It was also somewhat simplified in that it had just the two storeys, with the upper floor housing the guests' rooms (eighteen in total and all of them accessible along a veranda leading to a stairwell on either side of the building), and the lower floor being a kind of common room.  
  
Their initial round of wandering took them in a loop around the hotel, and at one point Thomas lead her into the common room so she could have a quick look around. She found that the interior was about as large as an ordinary hotel lobby, but looked more like the activities-center of a retirement home, with several circular tables for sitting, another flat-screen television in the corner, and a secondary kitchenette for light cooking. Here also was the emergency landline phone Domer had mentioned – bright red and nailed to the back wall – and beside that was the only computer on the premises, a kiosk similar to those found in the realm's vestibule. While it did not have outside internet access, one could amuse themselves by looking through detailed maps of the jungle trails via the interactive Firdos browser, as well as information highlighting the different dinosaurs that were lurking nearby. A short video that described the history of the Prehistoric-realm and it's contents was also available for viewing on the kiosk, along with a series of simplistic video-games.    
  
When they reached the veranda, this time climbing up the opposite staircase, they came to the room that neighbored Borton's. After a moment or two of knocking they were beckoned in by the occupant.  
  
"Door's open." Quinn shouted from the other side.  
  
The first thing Borton saw when she entered was that Quinn's room was almost identical to hers, save for the placement of the dresser and desk, which in this case was reversed. The second thing Borton saw was Quinn's guide, the same gallimimus he had shown her on the kiosk screen. In truth the dinosaur was very hard to miss. It was insanely tall, with a height of almost thirteen feet, and had to dip it's neck at an odd angle so as not to touch the ceiling with it's lean head. It stood beside the bed, arms curled up at it's side, completely ignoring Borton and Thomas as it went about the task of prudently unpacking Quinn's suitcase using only it's muzzle. Every so often it would pause and rifle off a round of jovial chicken-like clucks before going back to work.  
  
Like she had with the triceratops, Borton marveled at it's structure, half believing it to be something more than just circuitry and oil. And in contrast to Thomas, it looked like a far more amiable companion, even though the genial disposition seemed to be the same.     
  
"That's Jared." she heard Quinn say as he exited the bathroom.  
  
"Big fellow." remarked Borton, stepping up to the gallimimus. It continued to take no notice of her, even when she reached a hand out to touch it's arcing neck. She wondered if the guides were only meant to respond to their respective charges.    
  
"It's spot on." Quinn commented proudly, as though he'd built the thing himself. "Looks just like it ought to. Moves just like it ought to. And it talks. Isn't that hilarious?"  
  
"Yeah, so does mine." and she gestured to Thomas, who stood just inside the doorway. His relaxed stance had changed to one of taut surveillance, but he seemed to soften at the sound of Borton's voice.  
  
Quinn eyed the raptor with interest, mouth curving into a small smile.  
  
"What's your one call its self?" asked Quinn.  
  
"Tom." answered Borton.  
  
"Not too bad." Quinn commented in a sort of critique. "Size is a bit off, though. More like a deinonychus. But the shape is accurate."  
  
Borton nodded, no clue what a deinonychus was but happy to have the feedback.  
  
"What do you think of this place?" Quinn asked her.  
  
Borton shook her head; "I think if I knew how to build machines like these my competitors would be out of a job." she joked.  
  
"Don't you mean extinct?" he shot back, and the two of them laughed.  
  
"How about yourself?" inquired Borton, "What do _you_ think about the dinosaurs here? I'd love to get your professional opinion. Well, I mean another professional's opinion. A different professionals opinion." she struggled.  
  
Quinn regarded Thomas for another moment before answering.  
  
"I think it'll all depend on how they act in nature." he finally said.  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
Quinn paused to collect his thoughts.  
  
"Honestly? Riding triceratops and talking to tour guides is one thing. But I'm interested to see just how faithful the ones out there are." and he turned toward the window, referencing the dense forest beyond. "There are still a lot of theories about how dinosaurs acted socially. We know they moved in herds, that they reared their young. We even know what kinds of things they ate, but it'll be something to see how they act around one another. Whether or not they've been, I don't know, _programmed_ with a herd mentality."  
  
Borton hummed her agreement.  
  
"Don't get me wrong, though." Quinn went on, "God knows this place is impressive. I certainly don't mind the rooms, and the dinosaurs I've seen so far are pretty damn faithful to their ancestors. They know a lot about themselves, too." he added, "Jared there told me what part of the Cretaceous period he comes from, what the Latin definition of his name is, what his diet is. If you ask 'em they'll keep talking, and it's all fact. These Firdos guys sure did their homework."  
  
Borton glanced back at Thomas, who again seemed to brighten at the recognition. She grinned.  
  
"They really are something, yeah." she agreed, and it occurred to her that her initial fear of him had already begun to wane. And that was when the realization struck her. That her vacation in the Prehistoric-realm had actually begun. That she was there, in Firdos, at no personal cost, and that they had been kind enough to supply her with her her very own pet velociraptor (albeit temporarily).  
  
Only half an hour ago he had looked so fierce, but now, as she watched Thomas wag his tail (evidently delighted to be spoken so highly of), her father's voice echoed in her head.  
  
"Just a big old toy, Jo."  
  
She smiled, and she could have sworn he smiled back.  
  
While the gallimimus put the remainder of Quinn's clothes away, Borton made small talk, discussing how she guessed the mechanisms inside each guide model might have worked. She listened just as earnestly when the discussion shifted and Quinn began speaking about the various paleontological aspects attributed to the dinosaurs they'd seen so far in the realm. He was very admiring of the engineers' attention to the lesser features, even the ones ordinarily overlooked by most.    
  
She learned that Quinn had spent the last six years of his life digging through the dirt of various Southern American deserts, exhuming the tiny, fragmented bones of baby dinosaurs that had long since been eroded and misshapen by time.  
  
To be in Firdos now, among the lifelike representations of everything he had been striving to uncover was just as thrilling for him as it was for Borton.  
  
In-between the hot summers, when he and his team weren't 'fossil hunting', as he called it, he spent his days giving paleontological lectures at the University of Texas in Austin (the primary party responsible for funding the digs). He considered himself an informal guy, and the manner in which he gave his lectures was a perfect example of this. He would sit on the edge of the desk, or lean against the front side of the podium, dressed in casual attire – plaid shirt, ripped jeans, fading boots – and just talk. If there were interruptions, he didn't care, and if there were questions, he was happy to answer them at length. Because of this lifestyle, pleasantly divided between baking in the sun and dealing with bright-eyed students, Quinn had developed a relatively laid-back personality. However, he was fully capable of becoming agitated. His fuse just so happened to be longer than most. When he did get upset, though, the anger was usually presented in short livid bursts, and was afterward quelled with a moderate amount of alcohol.  
  
"Doubt you'll find any here." Borton commented sadly.  
  
"Yeah, I already checked the automatic-chef. That option's been disabled. If I really wanted to, though, I could order a shot of chocolate milk to drown my sorrows." he sighed comically.  
  
Before being asked to participate in the trial at Firdos, Quinn had been in the middle of a dig at the Red Canyon Ranch in Bighorn County, Utah. He had discovered a new nesting site, very well preserved and containing nearly three dozen fossilized sauropod hatchlings, the majority of which were intact.  
  
"It was a helluva thing to step away from, but boy did I need it. I've pretty much been running on fumes." he admitted. "Been doing the same thing for what feels like ages now, and without any real down-time."  
  
Borton frowned. No down-time was definitely something she could relate to.  
  
"Lucky they picked you for the trial, then, huh." she remarked.  
  
He nodded. "It's kind of a funny story, actually."  
  
According to Quinn, a number of paleontologists had been consulted during the per-construction phase of the Prehistoric-Realm. At one point he himself had even been contacted regarding the plausible mating habits of hadrosaurs.  
  
"Why would they want to know about that?" asked Borton, alarmed. "This place is supposed to be for kids, isn't it?"  
  
He chuckled. "That's what I said. But the way they sold it to me is that part of it's meant to be like a zoo. Very realistic."  
  
"Educational." Borton quoted, remembering what Nigh had told her, although she wasn't entirely sure children needed to be subjected to that sort of education at an amusement park. _Then again,_ her inner monologue contradicted, _stuff like that is probably what makes the other realms so appealing. Compared to what you can do in, say, the Pirate-realm, well a few dinosaurs doing what we know they probably did is pretty damn tame._  
  
"Anyway, I gave them some theories to work with and the next thing I know, they're phoning me back a few years later. Come on down, it's all on us. So here I am." Quinn finished, relaxing against the bathroom door-frame. "How about you? What's a movie star like you doing testing tourist attractions?"  
  
Borton shifted in her shoes. "I'm not a movie star. I just work behind the scenes."  
  
"Aw you know what I meant." he grinned.  
  
"I think they wanted me here because I know about robotics. Well, because I know about creature effects, I mean."  
  
Borton spent the next few minutes summarizing her career for Quinn, starting with it's beginnings under her father's tutelage, and ending with her recent endeavors to build a working sperm whale. She left out the part about her father's death. She figured he already knew the details (who didn't), and thankfully, he was respectful enough not to mention it when she was done speaking.  
  
"Wow." he said. "No wonder they wanted you. Sounds like you know what you're doing."  
  
She gave a modest shrug. McCullough had already given her more than a little praise on the flight over, and now it seemed like Quinn was ready to do the same. She wasn't used to receiving so many direct compliments.  
  
"There's always something new to learn in the special effects business." Borton replied, self-effacing. "I'm lucky to be here. These robots are more elaborate than I would have ever guessed. The fact that I'm even allowed to look at them is just insane."  
  
Quinn went to reply, but was interrupted halfway through his sentence by the boisterous entrance of McCullough, who had apparently spotted Thomas from down the hallway.  
  
"Good lord, look at you, then!" McCullough exclaimed, tugging at Thomas' tail like some hyperactive grade-schooler. Thomas, like the gallimimus, remained unperturbed by this breach of personal space.  
  
McCullough carried on with a string of loud questions. "What a monster, eh? Look at it's eyes! And have you seen those feet?"  
  
"Yeah, the velociraptor uses those to slash at it's prey. Scrape it up." Quinn enlightened him.  
  
"You don't say. And whose is it, then? The skinny brute."  
  
Borton raised her hand.  
  
"Very neat. And how about this hotel? Absolutely fantastic, isn't it? I mean, talk about fun. Just look what I found in my cereal box."  
  
McCullough stuffed a hand into his pant pocket and withdrew a small wind-up dinosaur figurine with motorized legs and a turn-key in it's back. He held it up for the others to inspect, and then placed it in front of Thomas, wound and ready to launch. When he let go of it, it began to jitter toward the puzzled raptor at a decent pace.  
  
"Big brother, meet little brother." McCullough chuckled.  
  
Before the clockwork miniature could reach Thomas, Borton stepped across the room and scooped it into her hands. She handed it back to McCullough.  
  
"And where's your guide?" she asked him, arms folded across in the mock pose of an expectant mother.  
  
McCullough informed them that his guide, along with Irvine and Abrams, had already assembled just outside the hotel at the base of the easterly hill and were waiting for the others to join them.  
  
"That's where the tour starts." McCullough clarified.  
  
"Tour?" Quinn repeated, confused. "You don't mean they want us to go out hiking now, do you?"  
  
"Apparently."  
  
"Hell, we only just got here." protested Quinn, dropping heavily onto the bed with a weary gust of breath.  
  
"True, but we're only here for a few days, aren't we." McCullough asserted.  
  
"One week." quoted Borton. She'd seen the actual paperwork.  
  
"Well okay, but still, I'll bet they're trying to fit as much as possible into that time frame." insisted McCullough.  
  
It seemed the most reasonable explanation.  
  
"We best stay on their schedule. Besides, I doubt it'll take very long. It's for kids, after all."  
  
"Walking's what adults do to tire kids out." argued Quinn.  
  
"Oh, I'm sure it's fine. And a bit of exercise is never a bad thing."  
  
Quinn begrudgingly removed himself from the bed and signaled for Jared to join him. Together, along with Borton and Thomas, they followed McCullough out of the room, across the veranda and down the staircase.  
  
The trail's head was located a yard or so from the hotel at the jungle's edge, at the bottom of a small hill (in what was the exact center of the compound). If one were looking directly down on the full enclosure, they would see that the paths wound around in a circular maze not unlike the pattern of a snail's shell, intersecting at certain points and organized by what dinosaurs could be found nearby.  
  
When they arrived they saw Abrams, Irvine and their respective guides standing at the trail's head. It seemed that Abrams had been the only one to take the small break of time allotted him to actually wash and shave. He had even changed into a fresh set of clothes. Aloof, he stood apart from the rest of those gathered, impeccably groomed in a dress shirt and pair of grey slacks.  
  
 _Hardly the outfit for any kind of arduous walk through the unfamiliar wilds_ , though Borton  
  
Abrams face was vacant under the midday sun, and he seemed to ignore their approach entirely. The sand crunched beneath his wing-tipped shoes as he shifted weight from one heel to the other, waiting for things to get underway.  
  
"There she is!" cried McCullough, and stuck two fingers in his mouth, giving a blaring whistle.  
  
The next thing Borton knew, she was staring at a third dinosaur – McCullough's guide, a stegoceras which was introduced by name as "Rosie".  
  
Standing side by side with Thomas, Borton saw that Rosie's height was about the same, but comparatively the stegoceras looked much stockier than Thomas did. Like Thomas, it was bipedal, but it's arms were shorter and stubbier. The top of it's bulbous head ended in a smooth, rounded dome which – as specified by Quinn – was three inches thick, and housed a relatively large brain. The dinosaur seemed to be in a state of perpetually good humor, even when McCullough made several joking statements referring to how the shape of it's head was very similar to a certain type of contraceptive.  
  
"Ah, but she really is lovely, though." McCullough chortled, and the stegoceras nudged his elbow dotingly. Ignoring it, he went on. "You should get a load of Henry's." and he signaled for Irvine to come over.    
  
Irvine waved, but stood in place, unable to move. His guide was laying at his feet, curled around them like a sleeping cat. It resembled a mix between a gazelle, and a large, wide-headed salamander.  
  
"What's that one called?" asked Borton.  
  
"Hypsilophodon." Quinn told her, pronouncing the name flawlessly. "It's got rows of bony plates along it's back. Helps it to keep it's balance."  
  
It was then that Abrams spoke up.  
  
"If I could have your attention."  
  
The others fell silent.  
  
"Unlike the rest of you," Abrams began, visibly irritated. "I am _not_ on holiday. This is not a vacation for me."  
  
"It isn't for us, either." Irvine interjected. Abrams shot him a frosty look, and he was immediately apologetic. "Erm, that is, ah, this is a safety inspection, isn't it? Aren't we, you know, the inspectors?"  
  
"No, they've done that already, surely." McCullough cut in, "I mean, the place is already up and running. It's perfectly safe. We're just testing it out."  
  
Abrams put his hand up again.  
   
"What I meant was, I'm not here to test the place. I'm here to review it." he insisted. "That's my job, and while you're all here to enjoy yourselves, I have a limited amount of time in which to get my work done. It was my hope that we – that is, all of us together – could get this tour over and done with _now_ , seeing how it's apparently the crux of the attractions. And afterwards, I'd like to conduct a group interview and jot down your various comments and concerns, if that's all right."  
  
"An interview? Jeez, Is that really necessary?" asked Quinn.  
  
"It would make my life easier, yes." said Abrams.  
  
"Well how about we reconvene in an hour. I'll be more likely to agree to those terms after I've had a nap." Quinn quipped smugly.  
  
"Aw, come off it." said McCullough, "I say we go now, get it out of the way. What do you think, Jo?"  
  
Borton raised her palms defensively.  
  
"I'm trying to avoid making enemies, here, so if it's all the same to you, I think I'll vote neutral on this one, fellows." she told them.  
  
She honestly didn't care either way, but she had seen enough film set conflicts to know when to just stay out of it. She was not about to begin her week of relaxation by upsetting the other guests. Thomas seemed to sense her discord and, snorting, moved to stand in front of her. The action struck Borton as weirdly protective.  
  
Irvine broke in again – "Hey, that's a good idea. Why don't we vote?" They all turned to stare at him, and he seemed to shrink in his shoes. Quickly, he added "Or-Or not, you know. Whatever's good for people."  
  
"No, that's a brilliant idea." McCullough decided aloud. "Let's put it to a vote. All for the tour, raise your hands. Okay, that's three. Henry, myself, and Mr. Abrams. Michael, looks like you loose even if Jo votes."  
  
Quinn nodded, accepting.  
  
"It's settled. We're going on the tour." declared McCullough.  
  
"I appreciate that." Abrams said flatly. He turned to his guide – a short, slender dinosaur that Borton later learned was called a coelophysis – "Lead the way, John."  
  
The coelophysis seemed to bow, a gesture made unusually graceful by it's agile form, and with that, motioned for the group to follow it into the jungle.  
  
Tugging at Quinn's sleeve, Borton asked if he was okay. While he showed no signs of disgruntlement, she wanted to be absolutely sure. Like her father, she disliked confrontational situations and tried to avoid them as best she could, but if they proved unavoidable she was fully prepared to be the one to defuse them.  
  
"Not a problem unless I make it a problem. And I'm not making it a problem." Quinn said matter-of-factly, and she could see he was telling the truth.  
  
The hikers ascended the small hill and, on the crest, saw that each trail was marked by small, multi-colored triangular signs that had been nailed into the trees on either side of the path. There were seven paths in total, all separated by the display of a different symbol on each marker. Squinting, Borton could see that the symbols were in fact individual dinosaur skulls. One of the guides explained that the various trails lead to individual regions of the realm, all of which housed different types of dinosaurs.  
  
The group set off by way of the herbivore trail, signified by the sign of a triceratops skull on the overhanging markers. The undergrowth that crowded either side of the path was thick and imposing, but for the most part the trail was relatively well maintained. The hikers kept close together in a tight drove for the first several minutes.    
  
As part of the safety precautions, every model of jungle dinosaur in the Prehistoric-realm was programmed to remain in a certain section of the jungle. This behavioral code (nicknamed 'the territorial instinct' by the Firdos engineers) was programmed in for several important reasons. Firstly, it kept the historical accuracy of the realm intact by preventing the dinosaurs that had existed in one period from interacting with other dinosaurs that may not have lived during the same period. Likewise, it also helped the dinosaurs to avoid sharing habitats that were not natural (case in point: the pterosaurs did not try to swim with the aquatic dinosaurs, and vice versa). Secondly, the territorial instinct also proved beneficial for plotting the tour, ensuring that crossover did not occur. And thirdly, should the need for repairs arise, the territorial instinct made it easier for the maintenance men to find the dinosaurs that might require fixing.  
  
The guide models, on the other hand, were acquainted with the whole of the expanse, and could lead an expedition off the path if they so chose, without worry of not finding their way back again.  
  
As they walked, Thomas stuck close to Borton, continually asking her if she was all right – if she needed a rest, if she was enjoying herself, and to let him know if anything was the matter. She found his attention both sweet and somewhat off-putting, as it seemed that none of the other guides were spending quite as much time asking how their wards were getting on. Still, she supposed it was better to have an overly-endearing tour guide, than one who wasn't focused on her at all.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter included multiple dinos, so to make things less confusing for the reader, I've included the names here so the option of looking up said dinos for visual reference is available. 
> 
> Dinosaurs Mentioned:
> 
> \- triceratops  
> \- velociraptor  
> \- gallimimus  
> \- stegoceras  
> \- hypsilophodon  
> \- coelophysis
> 
> (Quinn also mentions deinonychus, a kind of cousin of velociraptor – but presently there is no such dinosaur occupying Firdos. Hadrosaurs are also briefly mentioned by Quinn, but aren't shown in the park.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the tour, the testers observe a number of new and fascinating dinosaurs, and Joanna starts to notice certain things about Thomas' behavior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a brief disclaimer: Dilophosaurus makes an appearance in this chapter, and like the Jurassic Park film, it's portrayed very differently than its real-life counterpart. Check the notes below to see just how differently.

 

  _. . . Saturday (cont): Three days before total systems failure . . ._

 

The trail was dense and filled with lush, green trees, exotic shrubbery, and some of the most beautiful (if not abstract) flowers Borton had ever seen. She wondered how many of the plants had been grown there at Firdos, and how many had been imported in from other countries. In order to keep the scenery alive and thriving, the jungle its self was like a single, giant hot house, kept regulated from the outside by the central control hub. This meant that the air was particularly warm and balmy, and the humidity climbed the further in they went. Soon Borton began to perspire, the fabric of her shirt sticking to her skin. Growing noticeably hot, she wiped a palm across her sweaty forehead.  
  
Thomas walked alongside her, fairly close but not close enough to be upsetting. Noticing her discomfort he quickly asked if she was okay.  
  
"Fine, Tom." she told him, fanning herself with her hand. "Just a little too toasty for me, is all."  
  
"The current temperature is approximately eighty five degrees fahrenheit." Thomas informed her after a moment. "Would you like me to turn it down, Joanna?" he inquired sympathetically.     
  
Borton halted and turned to face him.  
  
"Wait. You – You mean you can actually do that?" she blurted.  
  
Tom gave a quick nod and hopped to the side, preparing to shriek. Remembering the lights in the hotel room, Borton cupped her hands over her ears and braced herself, ready. However, Thomas made no sound. Instead, he stood perfectly still and stretched his neck out so that his muzzle was pointed up at an odd angle, toward the sky. A second later, he returned to his normal stance.  
  
Borton was about to say something when a strong breeze wafted over her. All at once the temperature seemed to drop, and she began to feel cooler.  
  
She smiled.  
  
"How did you – ?" but she already knew the answer. He must have been connected to the central control hub through their wireless network, the same as the rest of the robots in Firdos. Another of their security precautions designed to ensure the safety and happiness of the guests. He had probably sent them some sort of message, a request to turn the heat down, and their response time had been almost immediate. No doubt there were technicians monitoring them right now, through the dozens of cameras and sensors likely located around the realm.  
  
 _They must be keeping an eye on the whole tour, making sure it goes okay_ , assumed Borton.  
  
Her eyes darted up and around, but for all of her effort she couldn't spot any hint of their espionage, and in the end she gave up the search.  
  
"Thanks, Tom." she finished gratefully.  
  
Thomas gave her a playful, sharp-toothed smirk and the pair resumed the hike, sprinting to regain their place with the rest of the group.  
  
As the tour progressed, each of the guides took turns talking about the various flora and fona around them, and when it was Thomas' turn to speak he ignored the habit the previous speakers had shared of addressing the entire audience altogether, and instead spoke only to Borton, keeping perfect eye contact with her as they walked. At the time this struck her as slightly odd, but none of the others in the group seemed to care one way or the other, and by the tour's end she would have forgotten about it entirely – too overwhelmed by the rest of what she had seen to recall such a minor detail.  
  
But for the first twenty minutes of the tour, none of the guides did much talking. And it was another twenty minutes before the tour group actually came across any dinosaurs. When they did, it was hardly the type of dinosaurs any of them had been expecting.  
  
By then the hikers were starting to become discouraged. Borton herself was beginning to feel severely disappointed, worried that the build-up (the triceratops, Thomas, all of it) had been misleading. Then again, Nigh had warned her that not all of the dinosaurs would be up and running during the trial.  
  
 _Yes, but surely we should have seen at least_ one _by now_ , she thought, discouraged.    
  
"You know what they ought to have on this dinosaur tour?" Quinn started sarcastically. "Dinosaurs."  
  
The grumbling went on in short bursts, and at one point threatened to become a full blown chorus of complaints. By then they had entered a kind of marsh and were making their way through.  
  
Borton said nothing as they walked, the only group member not kicking up a fuss. Even McCullough had started to gripe, albeit in a kind of two-faced, joking sort of way.  
  
"I think I was less bored when my ship was becalmed in the Pirate-realm." he sniggered under his breath.  
  
As they trudged through the thickening mud, Borton allowed a pang of grief to briefly overtake her.  
  
 _You should be home, Jo. Working on the whale. You're wasting your time here._  
  
She was balancing on the verge of defeat, trying to convince herself that the entire trip hadn't been a mistake, when they finally came across the dilophosaurus.  
  
The hooting – soft and lyrical – caught the wandering party off guard, and caused the entire procession to stop their march and begin looking for the source. They saw nothing, but the hooting continued; a fun, if not ghostly kind of sound.  
  
"It's sort of like a swan call, isn't it." remarked McCullough, approaching the edge of the trail. "I think it's coming from over here."  
  
No sooner had he said so then they all saw a rustling movement in the bushes below. The hooting continued, from less of a distance now, and McCullough took several steps off the path and down a moderately steep embankment toward it. There he saw a figure – a thin, light-footed dinosaur with a pair of crests extending vertically from the roof of it's head, each with a fingerlike, posterior projection.  
  
The figure ducked around the tree and popped back out again, on the other side, hooting mischievously. It stood only about four or five feet high, it's body spotted like an owl. A brilliantly colored retractable frill flanked it's neck, and Borton thought it looked cute.  
  
"Quinn, what is it?" she asked curiously.  
  
"I'm not sure but it looks like a dilophosaur."  
  
"A what?"  
  
"A dilophosaur. But it's not the right size. Most dilophosaurus were at least seven meters long." said Quinn, sounding somewhat disenchanted.  
  
"Maybe it's got a big brother around here somewhere." McCullough chuckled from the embankment. "How about it, little fellow? Any friends and relatives to introduce? Or are you the only one out here?"  
  
The dilophosaur just stared at McCullough, tilting it's head inquisitively.  
  
Irvine retreated to the opposite side of the trail, rattled. "Look at those _teeth_. I-It isn't – It isn't dangerous, is it?"  
  
The question had been intended for Quinn, but Thomas swiftly interrupted with the answer.  
  
" _Dilophosaurus wetherilli_ is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Sinemurian stage of the early Jurassic Period. It lived over one hundred and ninety million years ago. Dilophosaurus may have weighed nearly twenty two hundred pounds, and had twelve maxillary teeth and as many as eighteen dentary teeth. Early theories suggested that the dilophosaurus functioned as a basic predator, hunting and catching it's prey by force. This idea was rejected due to the loose connection of the dilophosaurus jaws, which led to the early hypothesis that dilophosaurus scavenged off carrion, because its teeth were too weak to properly subdue large prey. However, new studies have found that the most likely way dilophosaurus fed was by spitting a potent form of saliva, aiming for the eyes to blind and paralyze its prey."  
  
Borton glanced at Quinn, wanting confirmation.  
  
"That was all right, for the most part. Only there's no real evidence to suggest that they actually spat their venom. It's more likely that the venom would have entered the victim through a bite, like the kind you'd get from a cobra snake."  
  
"Cobras do spit, though." Borton commented quietly, and they returned their attention to McCullough, who was still trying to provoke the dilophosaurus into coming out into the open.  
  
From the back of the group, Irvine piped up again. "You mean it's a meat-eater right? Well, then, isn't it supposed to be somewhere else? I mean, aren't we on the herbivore trail?"  
  
"Hey, yeah, that's a point." realized Quinn.  
  
"Maybe they don't count it as a carnivore, though, because of the poison." Borton suggested, although it came out sounding less intelligent than she had planned for it to.  
  
"Either way, it's a screw up on their part." Quinn muttered, craning his neck up to the tree tops.  
  
Borton hoped the tour would improve soon, not only for her sake, but for his as well. He had been so excited to see dinosaurs portrayed realistically, and so far he had been denied that.  
  
McCullough, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind the inconsistencies. Currently, he was looking around on the ground for something. Boron watched as he picked up a stick and chucked it at the dilophosaurus, throwing it as far as he could.  
  
"Fetch!"  
  
The dilophosaurus seemed to get into the spirit of the game, but not the object. It remained rooted in front of McCullough, a frisky look on its face.  
  
"Oh, well. Not too bright are you, little walnut-brain. I'll give you one more go." and McCullough threw a second, larger stick over it's head.  
  
This time the dilophosaurus hissed and the brightly colored frill around it's neck flared wildly. The action made Borton and the others jump. McCullough, however, started laughing.  
  
"Hoo, boy. What a show."  
  
It was then that the dilophosaurus reared it's head back, a pair of bulbous sacs on the under-side of it's neck inflating grotesquely.  
  
It gulped thickly and spat.  
  
A large glob of something wet and translucent smacked into the middle of McCullough's chest. There were audible gasps from the onlookers. Slowly, McCullough reached down and touched the liquid that was now dribbling down his shirt. A look of confusion crossed his face as he lifted his right hand, now partially covered with spit, and looked at it strangely. Another glob of goo went flying past his head, only to strike the side of the embankment. McCullough ignored it, preoccupied as he flexed the fluid between his thumb and index finger.  
  
"That's disgusting!" choked Irvine, but his outcry went totally unnoticed by the affected.  
  
McCullough brought the odd fluid to his fingers and sniffed. Finding no odor, he rubbed it over the tip of his tongue. Borton cringed.  
  
Holding his hand back out for the others to see, McCullough giggled – "Only water. Hey, it's only water, guys! Little fellow thinks he's a squirt gun."  
  
Another hiss from the dilophosaurus and this time the lugie hit McCullough square in the face. Surprised by the coldness of the water, he stumbled frantically back, trying to rub it away. When he could see again he quickly about-faced and scrambled back up the embankment.  
  
"I seem to have, eh, angered it." he admitted once he was back on the trail.  
  
"Apparently." said Borton, eyes still on the fuming dinosaur at the base of the muddy hill.  
  
"Wasn't very kid-friendly, was it." Quinn added disapprovingly.  
  
"No, not very. Perhaps we should move on now?" suggested McCullough, and the others were quick to agree.  
  
They walked on, and as they ventured deeper into the marsh they kept their eyes peeled for other potential sightings.  
  
Just before they exited the marsh they arrived at a large pond. The land around it was less jungle-like, and more of an actual swamp, with the silhouettes of dead, crooked trees fading peacefully into the background, masked by a filmy layer of fog. Borton found it eerily peaceful.  
  
Here the path changed to stone, and was raised above the water for easier travel. Patches of green agile covered the pond surface, and could easily have been mistaken for solid ground. Borton kept her footing careful as the group found their way, past tall reeds that stuck up from the grimy water, past the remains of mossy logs half buried in the muck.  
  
Borton looked over her shoulder to see Thomas following in her wake, never more than a few steps behind her. All around them was the echoed croaking of frogs, along with the occasional splashing noise. In time she began to see bugs; giant dragon flies whizzing around her head, announcing themselves with a high-pitched hum. One of them even landed on the brim of her baseball cap. Instead of panicking, she allowed Thomas to quickly remove it.  
  
"Hey, can I see that for a second?" she asked, catching a metallic glint as he gripped the dragon fly delicately in his claws.  
  
Hesitantly, she pinched one of the it's wings and gently turned it over in his hands. She swallowed. The dragon fly was mechanical too.  
  
"Is anything the matter, Joanna?" Thomas asked, alert.  
  
She shook her head. "No, no, it's just . . . This is advanced micro mechanics. I didn't think they did that here."  
  
Thomas said nothing, and she raised the fly up to her face so she could better inspect it. While the exoskeleton was cleverly crafted to look real to the unsuspecting observer, the underside revealed an intricate system of wires and miniature circuits. She couldn't help but grin at the ingenuity of the Firdos engineers, and wished she could pocket the bug, if only to bring it back to her workshop as a souvenir. If her father was still alive that alone would have been reason enough to steal it. Her father would have loved to have seen it. He had attempted building a small-scale robot only twice in his life, each try for boredom's sake, and had always been disappointed when he couldn't quite get it to work. Borton knew that, if she had bought one of the dragon flies home for him, he would probably have tried to dissect it in some vain effort to improve his own technique.     
  
When she looked back up Thomas was gazing at her in a very peculiar way. There wasn't a word to describe it, but it was almost as though he was just as captivated by her as she was with the dragon fly. And back came that feeling of disquiet.  
  
 _You're still getting used to him. You've only had him for – what? Two? Two and a half hours now? You're still figuring him out._    
Handing the fly back to Thomas, she watched as he released it, perfectly unharmed, back into the air.      
  
As they moved on they eventually found a herd of small, awkwardly shaped dinosaurs – five or six in total – running about in an unusual, flat-footed manner, plucking the dragon flies out of the air with expert agility and pretending to devour them. According to Thomas, the dinosaurs were known as thecodontosaurus.  
  
They were awfully funny little things, and Borton watched them leaping after the fleeing insects as if they were playing a game of hopscotch, jumping and skimping after them on all fours.  
  
"Like little green monkeys." she whispered to herself.  
  
They had a rather short neck supporting a fairly large skull, with round, amphibian eyes, and their front limbs were much shorter than their legs. Conversely, their tails were much longer than the rest of their body put together.  
  
"On average, thecodontosaurus is four feet long, and twelve inches tall. The largest specimen can weigh twenty four pounds." Thomas specified.  
  
"Hmm." was her distracted reply, and even thought the amount of attention he had received was minimal, Thomas still seemed to puff at the recognition.  
  
The group did not stop for long to watch the thecodontosaurus. They knew that Firdos offered far more interesting exhibits, and soon enough they had exited the swamp.  
  
From there the path escalated up and, at the peak of the ascent, formed a ridge overlooking a shallow ravine, perhaps no more than five meters deep, and thinly littered with more tall trees. Occupying the base of the ravine was a small herd of brachiosaurus, four in all. Borton stepped up to the edge where the ground sloped away, as far as the guides would permit her to, and gazed down at them, absolutely taken aback by their size. They were at least twice as large as the otherwise-imposing sperm whale currently undergoing repairs in her workshop, and comparatively they made it look like it was nothing more than a pitiful bathtub decoration.    
  
She watched as their heads actively shifted above the ravine canopy. Dimly, she thought that they resembled over-sized giraffes. She was so entranced by the way the colossal behemoths moved that she barely noticed when Thomas, who had apparently seen her interest in them as an excuse to begin another round of talking, started listing the facts pertaining to their size and weight.  
  
At nearly eighty-five feet in length (the majority of that on the neck alone), and around thirty metric tons, the brachiosaurus was the largest dinosaur housed at the Prehistoric-realm. Borton imagined they were also some of the first built, and she could only guess at how long their construction had taken.  
  
"The diet of the brachiosaurus consisted of foliage found above ground." lectured Thomas, and sure enough the dinosaurs stretched their extensive necks upward, toward the tree branches hanging over the side of the ridge, browsing for fresh leaves.  
  
Slowly, the other members of the tour joined Borton at the fringe, mystified by the enormous creatures. Irvine came up beside her, hand at his hairline, squinting hard.  
  
"They're huge. Kids'll think they're monsters." he quavered, voice small.  
  
Quinn was quick to dispute. "Are you kidding? Those are about as gentle as you get. They're nothing but a bunch of cows."  
  
"Vegi-soars, Henry." McCullough joined in, soothingly. "They're Vegi-soars."  
  
Ignoring them, Borton noticed as one of the gargantuan robots seemed to grow aware of the spectators staring down at it, and started to wade over, mighty neck swaying with every hulking step.  
  
Irvine's eyes grew wide. "They're coming over."  
  
Borton grinned. "Boy, that's smart."  
  
"What is?" asked McCullough.  
  
Rather than answer, Borton put her arm up and waved, very slowly in a wide arc. McCullough saw as the Brontosaur's massive eyes followed the pendulum movement of her arm, back and forth, side to side, like a vision test.  
  
"I think it's sight is based on movement." she stated, lowering her arm.  
  
When McCullough gave her a pressing look she explained that the inner ocular system of the animatronic brontosaur was likely equipped with an advanced pair of motion sensors.  
  
"It's a great way to save power if you think about it," she told him conversationally.  "Especially with these larger robots. They don't come online until they detect motion of some kind. Must help to conserve the battery life."  
  
"Different to the tour guides, though." remarked McCullough.  
  
"Yeah, I'm willing to bet _their_ systems are based on multi-sensory perception." she clarified, turning toward Thomas as she spoke. She had no idea if it was true, but her earlier exchange with Thomas – how he had readjusted the jungle temperature for her – had begun to make her think. "Not just audio and visually attuned," she told McCullough, "But touch, taste, maybe even body heat."  
  
"You think all of that factors in to how they distinguish what's around them?" Quinn asked with growing interest.  
  
Borton nodded and pressed a finger to her lips, momentarily lost in thought.  
  
"I know the zombies and the vikings rely on temperature to attack." divulged McCullough.  
  
"What? You mean they go for the warm bodies?" asked Quinn.  
  
"No. Yes, kind of. It's complicated, actually. It's more of a safety mechanism than anything else." McCullough tried to clarify. "If it's warm, they'll go after it, but they'll be extra careful not to hurt it. That's how they interpret what's human and what's not. If Jo's right, it sounds like the guides here are similar, but much more advanced than all of that."  
  
"You know, it wouldn't surprise me if they can even smell somehow." Borton professed, musing.  
  
"That's a pretty damn realistic way to build them, if you ask me." said Quinn, sounding relatively impressed.  
  
Thomas seemed to perk at this last comment, and Borton smiled back at him, surprised at his attentiveness. While she felt positive that he had no idea what she was talking about, she wondered again if he knew he was a robot.

 _Is he programmed to deny his robotic heritage? Or does he think of himself as a real, living breathing organism?_ _I need to remember to ask him . . ._  
  
A heavy shadow fell over the hikers, blocking out the sun entirely as a brachiosaur's head pushed into the tree branches nearest the ridge. It hesitated there for a second, seemingly staring at them, before finally opening it's wide mouth and chomping down on a branch over their heads. Borton watched as McCullough and Quinn stepped closer, staring at the dinosaur in wonder as it continued to chew (though Borton noticed that it never actually swallowed). From behind her, she thought she heard Irvine give a tiny, petrified squeak.  
  
A moment later and McCullough had scrambled to the very brim of the edge, against his guide's advisory, trying to catch the brachiosaur's attention. It wasted no time on his antics and continued to eat. He spun around, clasping his hands together like a mad scientist, and dashed toward an adjacent tree. With a quick yank of both arms, the branch was free from the trunk and McCullough was back at the edge of the ridge, waving it in front of the brachiosaur's nose.  
  
"What are you doing?" Irvine gulped.  
  
"I'm trying to feed it. Come on, you big cheeseburger, you. It's a free lunch I'm offering." McCullough taunted, shaking the branch as hard as he could.    
  
All at once the brachiosaur lurched forward and caught the end of the branch between it's flat teeth. McCullough pulled back – "It's so strong." – and the two began a tug-of-war.  
  
Eventually the brachiosaur let out a booming honk, and managed to rip the branch out of his hands. Borton could hear the wood crunch under the pressure of it's hydraulic mouth. She saw McCullough move closer, Quinn and Irvine on his heels. Abrams stood back, quietly observing as each of them went to pet the animal, taking it one turn at a time.  
  
"Aw, who's a good girl." Quinn cooed, rubbing both hands across the robot's massive snout. "You're so pretty, you're the prettiest one. You're my favorite."  
  
Borton kept off to the side. It struck her that a robot that large must have a processor the size of a truck engine, and at the rate it had to be running, there was little doubt it would be burning up. She wondered what kind of ventilation system the engineers had devised in order to keep it cool and operational. Slowly, with her hand raised, she began to trace the contours of the brachiosaur's long neck, drawing an invisible line across all the possible ventilation points, trying to guess where the main exhaust port might have been placed.  
  
By then it was Irvine's turn. He approached the dinosaur tentatively, barely touching the tip of it's nose. As if on cue, the brachiosaur sneezed – a single, violent expulsion of warm air that kicked up a flurry of dust directly into Irvine's face.  
  
 _Huh_ , thought Borton. _So that's where the exhaust port is._  
  
When the dust finally settled, Irvine was covered from head to toe. His eyes, the only things that weren't cloudy and brown, bulged from his head, and he was on the brink of hyperventilating. While Quinn and Abrams quickly ran to comfort him, hurriedly patting the dirt from his hair and pant legs, McCullough addressed the brachiosaur.  
  
"God bless you!"  
  
Borton burst into laughter, immediately silencing herself as she heard Irvine begin to cough and wheeze. She wasn't sure if he had found it funny too, or if he was just trying to work the dust out of his lungs.  
  
When Irvine had been sufficiently cleaned up and calmed down, the group continued on their way.  
  
Further on the trail widened out to become a fork. As they neared the divide, another pair of dinosaurs emerged from the copse. They were big, dumpy creatures with backs and heads covered in thick, armor plating, and mouths shaped like rounded beaks.  
  
"Euoplocephalus." Quinn told them un-prompted.    
  
At nearly twenty feet long (the size of a small truck), they were almost as formidable-looking as the brachiosaurus, though not nearly as graceful. They waddled directly into the center of the trail, pausing once they caught sight of the hikers. Large, bony lumps decorated the ends of their tails, and according to one of the guides – Abrams' this time – they had the potential to crush a boulder with a single swing, though they were not usually hostile unless sorely provoked.  
  
"Looks like a walking mace, doesn't it." said McCullough, pointing.  
  
Together, the euoplocephalus couple emitted a trumpeting sound, in unison, and each of the guides answered back with their own unique calls. A secret song of the dinosaurs. Borton thought it was a nice touch and wished she could interpret what they were saying, even considered asking Thomas, but in the end decided not to pry.  
  
As their song died away the euoplocephaus slowly turned, and made their way sluggishly back into the jungle. When they were gone, the tour re-commenced, and the group took the left turn at the fork – down a detour that stopped at a small clearing. At the center of the clearing was a play park, like the kind you might find at a school yard. There was a swing set, several teeter-totters, a merry-go-round, a slide. There were even animal-springers in the shape of little bounding tyrannosaurs. And at the center, a jungle gym. The metal of the monkey-bars shined under the sunlight filtering down through the treetops, and Borton's eyes lit up.  
  
She felt like a kid again.  
  
"How do you like that." McCullough smirked. "What do we find in the jungle? Why, a jungle gym, of course." and with that he took off at a sprint toward the monkey bars, his guide stomping awkwardly after him.  
  
Across the way was a set of picnic tables, and waiting there was yet another dinosaur, this one holding a large tray of refreshments.  
  
"Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me." Abrams scoffed, incredulous.  
  
The dinosaur was lightly built, about six and a half feet tall, with a large, fat tail – something like a wallaby's. It's face was very birdlike, and it's stern expression was not all that different from the glowering parakeet that could be found at the back of any petshop.  
  
Borton was beginning to desperately regret not having tried to sneak a camera into the park. So many different dinosaurs with so many strange names. A photo-journal would have been the perfect memory aid. Luckily for her, Quinn and Thomas were never far away, and both were happily willing to be helpful when it came to answering her questions.  
  
The dinosaur – an oviraptor, according to Thomas – stood quietly offering the tray of snacks to the hikers. There wasn't much, just a handful of sandwiches and three or four plastic bottles full of crystal clear, spring water. Borton stepped forward and took a bottle off the tray. She twisted the cap and tossed it away, taking a hearty swig. Refreshed, she went to plan her next move.    
  
Abrams and Quinn were otherwise impartial to the discovery of the play park, and even seemed anxious to continue the hike, whereas Irvine looked overjoyed to see a place to sit. He quickly made his way over to one of the benches accompanying the picnic table, his hypsilophodon doddering behind him, and let himself fall against the wood with a sigh. Borton stood with the other two men, trying to decide between joining Irvine at the table or joining McCullough on the monkey-bars. In the end she decided on a middle option, and took a seat at the swing-set, while Quinn nabbed a sandwich from the tray and wandered over to talk with McCullough. Abrams was left by himself, but looked indifferent to the fact.  
  
As Borton let herself fall into the swing (it was very small, clearly designed for a child, and she was surprised she even fit), Thomas came up behind her and started to push. Gradually, she built up momentum, and gaining some height, let her head fall back and her eyes shut, enjoying the weightless feeling that came with every oscillation.  
  
Her father had been a busy man, but somehow he had always found time to do things with her. Whether that meant bringing her to his studio to help him work, or taking her out to the various parks and playgrounds around their house, he was never one to let his work get in the way of his parenting.  
  
"Are you enjoying the tour, Joanna?" Thomas asked her happily.  
  
She thought about it and decided that, yes, she was. Regardless of the rocky start, and the strange conduct of the jungle dinosaurs, she was enjoying the tour, and for the first time in ages, she was having fun.  
  
"It's been enlightening, actually." she confessed, remembering that, around this time last week she had been locked away in her workshop, trying to prefect the turning apparatus on the whale's motorized fin.  
  
"I'm glad you're here." Thomas told her quietly, tone sincere.  
  
It was then that Borton became aware of how relaxed she felt, and not just in general. He was standing behind her, pushing her back and forth with mild strength, and she was allowing it to happen. She wasn't worried about his claws, about his teeth, about anything really.  
  
Though swinging had always calmed her down as a child (another reason why her father had taken her to parks as often as he had), it was more than that. She had only spent a couple of hours at Firdos with Thomas, and already her initial apprehension had more or less completely disappeared, replaced by a growing sense of – what was it? Tolerance? No. Ease would have been a more appropriate definition for it.  
  
 _That's it_ , she thought tranquilly. She had started to feel at ease around him.  
  
Sure, there were still aspects of his behavior that caught her off guard, like how he had gazed at her earlier on, or how he had snuggled up next to her on the bed during breakfast, and other, smaller things she had only now begin to pick up on (how closely he walked with her, how he kept asking after her as they went along, how he was always looking at her).  
  
 _But that's how he's programmed to act_ , thought Borton.  
  
She knew that he was meant to be her guardian as well as her tour guide, and didn't that sort of position require him to be extra vigilant?  
  
And then there was the fact that he had been designed to interact with children. That explained the snuggling, at least.  
  
 _Of course he'd be all touchy-feely if he's meant to be taking care of kids._  
  
She sighed, unable to provide herself with a reasonable explanation for his various eccentricities. She surmised that she would need a considerable amount of data – more than she currently had after only a few hours with him – before she could form a proper conclusion regarding the way he functioned.  
  
So, for the time being, she resolved to let her opinion of him continue to form based on how gentle and polite he was, rather than how strangely he acted around her.  
  
Opening her eyes again she saw that Quinn was on the monkey bars now, doing his best to make his way across them, long legs curled up to his waist so that he wouldn't drag his feet along the ground. The sight was an especially silly one, and Borton felt –  
  
 _At ease. I am at ease here._  
  
Having grown tired of swinging, she made her way over to the picnic table and took a seat next to Irvine. Thomas remained by the swing-set, collecting flowers from a nearby bush.  
  
"Strange thing for a dinosaur to do." Abrams cited, fishing around in his pocket for something. "Picking posies."  
  
"Strange is certainly the right word for it, yeah." Borton replied. "But he's all right. I like him. How's your guide doing?"  
  
"John? All right I suppose." Abrams shrugged, taking no regard for the coelophysis that was currently nestled at his ankles under the table. "Honestly, I have little use for him, other than a few sentences in the article I'll be writing. Beyond that, well, he could flush himself down a toilet and I don't think I'd cry about it."  
  
Borton's nose crumpled at the comment. It struck her as unusually mean – almost callous, even. However, she didn't like to let first impressions skew her perception of people, so she decided to tolerate his rudeness as best she could and give talking to him another try.  
  
"Somebody put a lot of effort into John." she said nonchalantly. "I think that's worth a little respect, don't you?"  
  
"People put effort into making all kinds of pointless things. See how much respect they get."  
  
"Then the Mona Lisa is technically pointless." Borton pointed out, but her attempts were futile. She was talking to a critic, plain and simple.  
  
She watched as Abrams brought a cigarette pack onto the table and thumbed a stick out of the box. He brought it to his lips and, withdrawing a lighter from his pocket, raised the flame to the tip.  
  
Irvine paled.  
  
"Hey, you can't do that here. He can't do that here, can he?"  
  
"Why not?" Abrams muttered as he lit the cigarette.  
  
"This is a children's resort." Irvine tried.  
  
Abrams exhaled a smokey puff, unfazed by the comment.  
  
"They let you do whatever you want at Firdos, don't they." he countered calmly. "That's what makes it so attractive to tourists. They let you kill people here."  
  
"Not _real_ people." Irvine insisted.  
  
Abrams looked serene with the cigarette in his mouth. "No, but it's the principal of the thing, isn't it. They even tell you on the brochure to do whatever you want. And that includes killing people, among other, less insidious acts. So why not this?"  
   
Irvine said nothing. Abrams made a decent point, but in doing so had shed startling light on just how deranged a place Firdos actually was. Borton frowned, the ease she felt evaporating. The reality was indeed a disconcerting one, and it left her wondering – was it wrong to make a work of art with the sole purpose of defiling it? Or worse; destroying it?  
  
As someone who had devoted her life to building robots for entertainment, she felt oddly torn. Here, high quality, state of the art machines had been specifically designed for the intention of helping random strangers enact their most disturbing fantasies. Was that so very different from making a robot in her workshop just so it could get blown to pieces in some fantastic stunt later on, and all for the sake of a single scene?  
  
The idea had never actually crossed her mind before, and so it had never concerned her. Then again, she had never been around robots sophisticated enough to make her think it might actually matter. Now, as she sat there mulling it over in her mind, the concept began to fill her with a kind of muted self-reproach. Nothing that would ever make her abandon her father's practice, but certainly something that might make her view it differently from then on.  
  
Bothered, she made an attempt to steer the conversation in a new direction.  
  
"Is everybody enjoying the hike?" she asked innocently.  
  
"Actually, I get the impression we're only halfway through." Abrams admitted, looking more than a little vexed. "I'm considering moving the interview up."  
  
"To when?"  
  
"Now, as a matter of fact."  
  
Borton gave him a baffled look.  
  
"You mean you want to interview us here, on the break?"  
  
"If I wait until we're back at the hotel I'm willing to bet that you and the others will be too tired to provide me with any kind of useful information." Abrams stated pragmatically. "You'll tell me 'tomorrow' and you'll keep pushing it off, and in the end I won't have what I need to write my review."  
  
Borton suspected he was right, and before she could stop herself she yawned, suddenly mindful of how tired she was. They had been walking for some time now, and exhaustion had already begun to set in for her. She was unable to recall the last time she had gone on a proper, long walk like this, and she had no idea how the others were holding up, but if the second portion of the tour wound up lasting just as long as the first portion had, she knew she wouldn't want to bother with an interview once they got back to the hotel.  
  
Languidly, she swung her gaze in the direction of the jungle gym, and watched as Quinn and McCullough continued to act like kindergarten students at recess. They appeared to be playing some kind of game, possibly truth or dare. It involved one of the two of them betting the other that he couldn't complete some impossible task (currently, it had to do with which one of them could walk across the top of the monkey bars in only their socks).   
  
 _They won't want to do an interview now_ , she thought somberly.  
  
She tried to remember just how soft the mattress in her hotel room had been, and gave a breathy sigh, resting her cheek on her hand in silent repose.  
  
Just then something occurred to her.  
   
"Can I make a suggestion?" she inquired, eyelids lifting.  
  
A stream of smoke poured out of Abrams' nose and filled the air around his face. She took it as the go-ahead to give her proposal.  
  
"I say you interview me and Henry now." advised Borton. "Do the others tomorrow morning. Feedback from two people is better than nothing, and it ought to give you enough to work with for the time being. Am I right?"  
  
She watched as Abrams sucked on the end of the cigarette, his inner deliberation lasting all of five seconds before he gave a single, curt nod of agreement. He then withdrew a pencil and small moleskin notebook from his back pocket.  
  
Irvine gave him a puzzled look. "What are those for?"   
  
"Unfortunately, the good people of Firdos did not permit me to bring a recoding device along." Abrams muttered sourly, and briskly extinguished the remains of the cigarette on the grass under foot. With the notebook and pencil in hand, he turned to Irvine.  
  
"Doctor Irvine, care to go first?"  
  
Irvine shifted nervously on the bench.  
  
"Uh, okay." he began, inhaling shakily. "What do you want to know, exactly?"  
  
"For starters, let's have your initial impression of the place. Do you like it?"  
  
"I – um – I do like the place, sure. As a guest I do. I think it's mentally stimulating and pretty fun, offers a lot to the imagination, certainly. We haven't done everything, I know, but it's not boring. It hasn't been boring. It's just . . ."  
  
He trailed off a moment, trying to find the right words.  
  
"Go on?" encouraged Abrams.  
  
"I sort of think that some of these dinosaurs, some of the ones we've seen have been a little . . . unpleasant-looking."  
  
Abrams nodded in the way most talk-show hosts do when their guests are high-strung. "Could you elaborate a bit for me, Doctor Irvine?"  
  
Irvine paused, pressing a finger to his lips for a long moment. Then he said "Well, for one thing, this tour has been full of animals that haven't exactly been, erm, warm and cuddly, now have they. Take that, uh, that one we saw at the start."  
  
Irvine put his fingers to his neck, fanning them out and wiggling them like spider's legs in an attempt to show them what he was talking about.  
  
"You mean the spitting one?" Borton finally offered. "Dilo – Dia – it started with a dee."  
  
"Yeah, that's the one. Something like that could have really scared a kid, I think. And how about those brontosaurs?"  
  
"They were big, but they weren't necessarily scary." she reasoned.  
  
"No," he replied, "But they were dangerous. Suppose what happened to me happened to some kid with asthma?"  
  
"To be fair, I don't think you were meant to get that close to them." argued Borton. "Your guide told you multiple times not to go up to the edge. So did mine."  
  
"True, but that's another thing. This whole system of using dinosaurs as, eh, as personal tour guides. I think it's a little flawed."  
  
Abrams leaned forward, expression unchanged. "And how would you say it's flawed, Doctor Irvine?"  
  
"Well, there are a number of reasons, really. First off, you take into account the whole scary aspect of some of these dinosaurs. Like that one, for instance."  
  
And he pointed to Thomas.  
  
"Tom? There's nothing wrong with Tom. He's perfectly friendly." Borton replied, tone slightly defensive. "At least," she added as an after-thought, "At least, he's been pretty friendly to me so far."  
  
Irvine gave a vigorous nod.  
  
"Oh, I'm sure he's friendly, very friendly. Clowns are friendly, but some kids are still afraid of them." and he began to scratch the back of his neck. "Look. I don't know if they're going to put any kind of limit on this place – like, ages seven to thirteen or something, but what I'm trying to say is that dinosaurs that look like that have the potential to really scare small children, even if they are friendly." He persisted.  
  
Abrams pursed his lips. "Mmm. You make an interesting point, Doctor. Please continue."  
  
"Ah, well it's not just their looks, either, really. Suppose the children don't see them as authority figures." he clarified. "As in, the same way they might view an adult, um, an adult robot. A man-bot, or whatever you would call them."  
  
"You mean you don't think kids will listen to them?" Borton clarified.  
  
"Well we didn't and we're grown-ups." Irvine contended. "It's just that, if the children don't respect them, then how can the guides be expected to keep them safe? For that matter, how can the guides be expected to keep themselves safe."  
  
Borton's brow creased. "You mean you fear the possibility of abuse?"  
  
"Anything's possible, really. I have patients that break their favorite toys just because they can, because they know those toys are expensive."  
  
Borton looked at Thomas, tried to picture him under attack by a group of angry juveniles. Imagined him on the floor in pieces with the children stomping on his tail, kicking at his head. The thought of seeing him broken like that –  
  
 _but they can't get hurt –_  
  
somehow seemed to hollow her stomach.  
  
She found herself right back at the conversation she had tried to steer them away from. Big old toys that were built to be broken by fickle kids, obnoxious tourists, and even big-shot Hollywood directors. She couldn't quite figure out how to feel about it.  
  
By then, Thomas had collected a small hand-full of what looked like daffodils, and was tying them together at the stems.  
  
Suddenly, Borton was overcome with the desire to call him over, to check him for ( _wounds would they be wounds if he's only a robot_ ) and make sure he was still intact. For an artist like Borton, it was almost instinctual, to want to preserve and protect such a rare work of art.  
  
"Buy why? Why would any kid do that?" she rasped, bewildered.  
  
Irvine bit his bottom lip. "It depends on the child, most of the time. Some of them have anger issues, some of them just want attention." he said, hanging his head. "My point is, the same thing could happen here."  
  
"Yes, but surely they have a kind of self defense mechanism." she offered. "I mean, wouldn't the robots here have been built with the basics of self preservation? A degree of it, at any rate?"  
  
"Possibly." said Abrams. "We could try throwing a rock at once, see if it dodges. Test it."  
  
"Technically we already have tested them. I mean, none of those guides went jumping down the ravine, did they. They knew enough not to."  
  
"You mean they know not to hurt themselves?"  
  
"Not to damage themselves, yes." she elaborated. "What I'm saying is, it's very unlikely that they would just stand there and take that sort of violent misbehavior from a kid. At least the guide models wouldn't. The engineers won't allow it, I'm guessing. You've got to figure that they'd want to maintain those robots for as long as possible."  
  
"And what about the jungle dinosaurs?" asked Irvine.  
  
"Don't know. Maybe they're self preserving, but then again, maybe not. Those would be easier to fix, I imagine – if damage did occur, I mean." she told him. "Either way you look at it, I don't think disobedient kids would be allowed to stay."  
  
"Well it still doesn't change the fact that certain aspects of this place could be potentially jarring to a small child's psyche." concluded Irvine.  
  
Borton understood where he was coming from, even though his attitude was somewhat on the pessimistic side. The man was a trained psychologist, and Firdos had invited him there to deduce whether or not the Prehistoric-realm was child-friendly. Even so, she didn't completely agree with what he'd said. After all, they had only been at Firdos half a day. It was a little early to be judging the place so harshly. With this in mind, she endeavored to remain upbeat, despite the negative points that had been brought up.  
  
"Now, hold on a minute." she started, as civilly as she could. "I think we're looking at this under the assumption that all the kids on this planet are cowardly little SOBs." she chuckled. "I think we ought to take a step back and get realistic about all of this. I mean, sure, the Prehistoric-realm might not be for everybody, but in theory, the parents of the kids that _do_ show up will have checked the place out in advance, and gathered enough info on it to have determined if it was the right kind of place to leave their children. And besides, anything can be dangerous or scary to a kid. Just like you said – clowns are scary. Baseball practice – something kids adore – even that's scary, and in some instances, dangerous. Hell, most aspects of social interaction are scary and dangerous, aren't they?"  
  
Irvine gave a hesitant nod, looking diffident. Abrams remained unmoved by her speech. Nevertheless, she kept going, determined to lighten the mood again.  
  
"But it's the scary and the dangerous that help a kid mature, right? What's a fairytale without a fire breathing dragon or two?" she put forward. "Tom's a little scary, sure – at first I saw him that way, but I don't now. And I know that if I were nine years old right I'd be having the time of my life at this place." she added spiritedly. "I'll admit it isn't perfect here, and there are even a couple of thing's I'd change about it, but really I think it's been pretty stellar so far."  
  
"And is that your professional opinion, Miss Borton?" asked Abrams, sounding amused by her show of energy.  
  
"It's my opinion as a tourist." was her quick response.  
  
"But if you had to give me your professional opinion of the Prehistoric-realm?"  
  
She swung her legs around the wooden bench and stretched them.  
  
"From a special effects standpoint, this place is still amazing." she explained. "The mechanics alone are utterly staggering. The way these robots operate is just – well it's fascinating stuff. Almost makes me wish they'd given out an instruction manual on the way in."  
  
Just as she finished Thomas appeared from behind and presented her with a delicate crown of flowers – a surprising gesture of kindness. She stared at it for a moment, unable to stop herself from grinning.  
  
"Oh. Thank you." she said sweetly, and let him remove her baseball cap and place the crown gingerly over her head.  
  
"You see?" she asserted, addressing Abrams and Irvine. "This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about."  
  
She took Thomas' hand in hers, and thought she heard him purr. She ignored it, on a roll.  
  
"Do you have any idea how much _effort_ must have gone in to making him this dexterous? And how involved his programming must be for him to even think about doing something so expressive? I mean, I didn't ask him to make this for me. He just up and did it, because – because –"  
  
Her voice trailed away. Why _had_ he made it for her?  
  
"Because?" Abrams parroted impatiently.  
  
"Well it doesn't matter why he made it." Borton established. "The fact is, they built him _capable_ of making it, didn't they. That sort of dedication, that amount of detail shouldn't go overlooked. It's got to be factored in." she declared enthusiastically. "I mean, knowing a robot like this even _exists_ – well, doesn't it just blow your mind?"  
  
Dismissing the question and it's immature phrasing, Abrams said "I work for the BBC. I'm not allowed to have a biased opinion on anything I review."  
  
Borton blinked and released Thomas' wrist.  
  
Sensing the death of the discussion, Irvine cleared his throat.  
  
"So, um, w-when are we meant to get going again?" he ventured timidly.  
  
Abrams checked his watch.  
  
"Yes, that should suffice, I think." he droned, shutting the notebook and placing it back into his pocket. "I've got more than enough to work with for the moment. What's say we carry on now? Everybody's rested, aren't they."  
  
Borton looked up and across the park, to where Quinn and McCullough had been playing. Both men were sitting at the base of the jungle gym, legs sprawled out in front of them in a pose that signaled their fatigue. She gave the cue for Thomas to let them know they meant to leave soon.  
  
Without hurrying, the group reformed at the end of the play park, and once again the tour got underway.  
  
Thomas reclaimed his position at Borton's side. She was still wearing the flower crown he had given her, but it was starting to droop as she walked, causing petals to fall around her face and pollen to drip down the bridge of her nose.  
  
"You like it." he affirmed, pleased.  
  
"Hmm? Oh, this? Sure." and, after thinking on it, "What made you want to give me one, exactly?"  
  
She had asked out of professional curiosity, hoping his answer would provide more insight into how he had been built. But what he told her was vague and only served to further confound her.  
  
"I thought you deserved something beautiful." he remarked. "You're very beautiful, Joanna."  
  
If it hadn't come out of a robot, the comment might have been considered touching. Instead, there was an edge of –  _creepiness did that just sound creepy_ – to it, and once again Borton found herself feeling slightly troubled by Thomas' behavior.  
  
She was getting a little tired of going back and forth like this. One moment Thomas seemed to be functioning fine, a perfectly ordinary robot, and the next moment he would say something like that and throw her for a loop.  
  
She decided it was best not to focus on it.  
  
With care, she removed the delicate flower crown from her head and slipped it into her pocket.  
  
"You don't want to wear it anymore?" she heard Thomas ask. He sounded almost hurt.  
  
"Of course I do, buddy." she replied, voice light. "I just didn't want it to fall off and get lost."  
  
It was a partial truth. If she could preserve it, she would take it home like she had intended to do with the dragon fly. It would be a lasting souvenir of (what she hoped would be) her wonderful vacation at Firdos, and a reminder of Thomas' superior design. But part of it was also that she felt a tad bit foolish wearing it. The crown was a fine gift for a little girl, but Borton was a full grown woman. That, and she felt more comfortable in her father's ratty old baseball cap anyway.    
  
 _More at ease_ , she thought quietly.  
  
The tour lasted another two and a half hours, and took them down the rest of the herbivore trail and onto the carnivore trail. Several more dinosaurs were spotted along the way, including a large criorhynchus, which had screeched at them from it's perch on a high tree like an angry hawk, and an ornitholestes, which had leapt out in front of Irvine as they turned a corner, nearly giving him a heart attack. Unfortunately, they had failed to spot the elusive tyrannosaurus rex which the guides had assured them was somewhere around the area.  
  
When Borton finally got back to the hotel she was dead on her feet.  
  
She decided against a bath and opted for a shower instead, far too impatient to wait for the basin to fill.  
  
Presently, she let her naked body slouch against the frosted screen of the shower stall as the steam drifted up around her, melting her into a pleasurable little oblivion. The water was as hot as she could stand it, but every so often she would twist the nob and splash her head with a spray of cold, worried that she might fall asleep otherwise. For this reason she had deliberately avoided looking at the bed when she had first come into her room, afraid that if she saw it she would be overcome with the urge to simply lay down and sleep. Thomas had offered to make her dinner, but in her exhaustion and eagerness to wash she had declined, perfectly fine with the idea of going to bed without eating. Now the raptor stood just outside, dutifully guarding the bathroom door, which had been left open only a crack to keep the condensation from collecting on the mirror.  
  
She could hear him, or rather, the occasional noise he would make – a kind of high, gurgling chant that was reminiscent of the sound a dolphin might make. Almost like he was singing to her. It was weirdly pretty.  
  
The day had been a full one, and no part of it would go unremembered, but of all the things Borton had experienced so far – the hovercraft flight, the hotel, even Thomas – the tour had been the most impacting. And although there was still more to come (the guides had a host of activities planned out for the rest of the week), Borton would not soon forget the splendid array of fascinating spectacles, both environmental and robotic, that she had been privileged enough to see.  
  
Yawning, she took the bar of soap in her hands (some fancy French brand that smelled like lavender and a type of berry she couldn't quite identify) and began to lather up. A large amount of dirt and mud had accumulated on the back of her legs and ankles during the tour, and she spent extra time scrubbing them before she moved on to the rest of her body. Midway through, it occurred to her that her guide must also be filthy from the trek.  
  
Before she could stop herself, Borton called out to him.  
  
"Hey, Tom? Are you water proof?"  
  
From the other side of the bathroom door she heard a faint "Yes. Do you require assistance?"  
  
"No, no. I was just wondering if you needed to clean up? I can hose you down when I'm done in here, if you want."  
  
There was no reply.  
  
"Tom? Can you still here me?"  
  
Nothing, and after a full minute of waiting Borton began to grow concerned.  
  
All she had wanted to do was help spray him down after she was dry and dressed. Nothing more. While on set she would often help to wash the robots that were being used, especially after a scene in the dirt. That was part of her job, to get them looking good again for the next round of shooting. She began to wonder if she had somehow offended him by bringing it up. Were the robots of Firdos even capable of taking offense? It would't have surprised her.  
  
In any case she certainly hadn't intended for the comment to offend him. If anything it proved that part of her work habits were bleeding through to ruin her vacation (she would have to try and change that over the course of the next few days). But surely, Thomas couldn't have taken her offer to mean something else, something insulting. She hoped he hadn't.  
  
"Tom?" she tried again. "You still out there, buddy?"  
  
Feebly – "Yes."  
  
"If you're dirty, it's perfectly okay. Dinosaurs are allowed to get dirty, you know, and I can wash you. I don't mind it." she explained, trying to elucidate her point so that he wouldn't misunderstand.   
  
Another beat, and when Thomas spoke next his voice sounded very funny.  
  
"I do not require cleaning, Joanna."  
  
Borton shrugged to herself.  
  
 _Probably self-maintaining too_ , she thought. _But he could have just said so from the start._  
  
Convinced, she pressed herself to carry on with the shampoo and stop thinking.  
  
The rest of the shower passed in silence, Thomas having suddenly gone quiet, though for whatever reason Borton was unsure.  
  
When she had finished toweling off she quickly slipped into her nightgown and exited the bathroom – a cloud of steam trailing after her. Wet hair stuck to her cheeks in damp clumps. She would sort it out in the morning.  
  
Thomas had already shut the lights off, and Borton found the room pleasantly dark. He stood at the foot of the bed, resigned.  
  
"Would you like me to tuck you in, Joanna?"  
  
"No thanks, Tom. I think I can manage." she said groggily.  
  
Thomas simply stared at her, luminous eyes glowing in the shadows. After her vacation was over she would have to recommend that the engineers at Firdos build robots that weren't so prone to staring. Some of the children might not like it.  
  
As she slid beneath the sheets the full extent of her exhaustion hit her like a ton of bricks, and her head fell heavy against the pillow. She barely bothered with the duvet, sinking into the softness with a gentle sigh.  
  
In a matter of minutes she was fast asleep.  
  
Thomas kept his place at the foot of the bed, and for a while he watched her, keeping an eye out for signs of distress in the same way a guard dog would. Eventually, though, he too entered a kind of sleep-phase of his own. In this state he could conserve power, rest his processors, and allow his systems to reset for the next day. It was almost like going into screensaver mode. There were even pictures, dream-like and hazy. An overview of the day's highlights, playing back for him in quick, jumbled fragments. They flashed behind his eyes just as they flashed across the screens of the technicians whose job it was to monitor him.  
  
Borton, had she been awake, would have found it fascinating. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the previous chapter, here is another list of dinosaurs featured in this chapter. Feel free to use it as a visual aid if you can't call any of these jurassic beasties to mind:
> 
> -thecodontosaurus  
> -euoplocephalus  
> -brachiosaurus  
> -dilophosaurus  
> -ornitholestes  
> -oviraptor  
> -(tyrannosaurus rex is mentioned in this chapter, but is not actually seen by the tourists)
> 
> Also, regarding Dilophosaurus – in reality, its neck frill and it's ability to spit venom (or in this case, water) are fictitious in both instances. The joke McCullough makes about it 'pretending to be a squirt gun' is based on the fact that the actual puppet used in the Jurassic Park film was modeled around a paint ball gun, which the puppeteers used to launch the 'spit' at the Nedry character.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Below the realms of Firdos, behind the scenes of the mechanical magic, breakdowns have begun to occur, and are steadily increasing in number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavily inspired by a scene directly out of Westworld, and is significantly shorter than the others. You might call it a background plot-pusher, maybe. Just something to fill the confusing gap in-between raptor-Tom moments.
> 
> It also introduces three new characters, one of which is a certain man-eating pirate who I may or may not have modeled off of a certain serial killer currently on television . . . Try to guess which one . . .

 

  _. . . Saturday (cont): Three days before total systems failure . . ._

 

While the dread-pirate Hektor looked impeccably young, and perpetually fit, he was in fact one of the oldest robots at Firdos. Because of this he was also one of the most advanced human-models, having undergone numerous repairs and countless upgrades in the past two decades of his existence.  
  
When the previous batch of guests had arrived the week before, the Hektor robot had been in the repair bay at the time, receiving a final round of upgrades to his optical sensory systems. These new installments afforded him the ability to see moving targets from up to forty miles away, and increased his capacity to aim his pistol nearly two hundred precent.  
  
Like most of the robots at the park, Hektor operated on a reoccurring cycle of programming. This meant that he was un-changing in his attitude or behavior (unlike the newer, dinosaur robots of the Prehistoric-realm). On the morning of the third day of his previous cycle, he and his men attacked the Queen Anne's Revenge, as he had been designed to do, and despite the heavy damage done by the returned cannon fire, his ship did not sink, though it would by the end. Again, by design.  
  
When Hektor finally boarded the ship, leaping like a spider across the gap between decks, he ignored the other robots and soundlessly began his scan of the hull. His purpose was to seek out the captain of the ship (specifically, whichever guest had been randomly assigned that role), and engage them in a battle to the death, a battle he must inevitably loose each time. When the captain at last was spotted, through application of the heat sensors just behind the bridge of Hektor's nose, he instantly began to advance, slicing down the various mechanical bodies which obstructed his path. As he did so, he made an effort to avoid the guests. This was also part of his design. The safety protocols prohibited him from directly harming any of the warm-blooded individuals in his sights, though he was perfectly free to make a mess of the other machines.  
  
When Hektor reached the captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge and engaged them, his initial programming told him to fight and win, but about halfway through the programming switched, as always, and Hektor lost almost seventy-five precent of his speed, balance, and swordsmanship. In the end, he was stabbed mercilessly through the chest and left to die on the bridge. He went offline just before his own ship sank to the bottom of the manufactured sea.  
  
He was, like all the other robots at Firdos, water proof, and a team of skilled divers retrieved him not two hours after his 'death'.  
  
If Hektor had been a real man, he might have gotten tired of loosing every week, and had he been able to feel pride, he might have been annoyed that he had never once won a battle in his 'life'. As it stood, he did not care one way or the other, in fact entirely incapable of caring about anything whatsoever, and as the sun set in the Pirate-realm he could again be found in the repair bay with a handful of other ruined robots.  
  
Peeling back the white tarp covering him, Oshiro Nakamura grimaced.  
  
"He's not malfunctioning too, is he?" Nakamura asked the technician, who was currently patching up Hektor's left breastplate.  
  
The new batch of guests had arrived earlier that morning, and in accordance with the set schedule of the Pirate-realm, Hektor would need to be back on the deck of the recently-restored Man Eater by the next evening in order to prepare for another attack.  
  
"No, sir. He got run through last week." answered the technician, eyes still on Hektor's innards. "Just got around to him today. I've taken the time to integrate a new dodge-reflex into his programming. Should make the next fight he gets into a little less predictable."  
  
Nakamura nodded and continued on his way, through the corridor of the east wing. He passed by other tables, some occupied by broken robots, some empty, though the number of empty tables had seemed to decrease during the past several months. The robots were brought down by collection teams every night, placed on the tables and covered by tarps, left to wait for the next available technician to fix them up and send them out again into their respected realms.  
  
In truth the place was more like a morgue than a repair bay. Fewer and fewer robots were coming back out, and the ones that _were_ being fixed did not _stay_ fixed. This was not only becoming an issue for the technicians, but for the guests as well. Recently the number of errors had sky-rocketed, and despite his investigations, Nakamura had not yet concluded as to why. But the more unreliable the robots became, the more the park would suffer.  
  
When the breakdowns had first started the majority of them had occurred in the Viking-realm and, less so, in the Zombie-realm. But now the errors were present in the Pirate-realm. Just that morning he had already seen five pirate-related malfunctions, one of which was the refusal of a wench to accept a guest's seduction. He had ordered her immediate removal from the realm, and when she had been brought down to the repair bay he had done the base inspection himself, afterwards ordering a full mechanical autopsy in order to diagnose (and hopefully isolate) the problem. Her individual parts had later been bagged and tagged for reference, and placed in the scrap vault for safe keeping.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
Nakamura was pulled from his thoughts when another technician flagged him down.  
  
Arriving at the table he saw a robot – a zombie this time – stiff as a board with it's arms raised. A guidance laser was pointed directly at the palm of it's left hand, and centered there, was burning a hole into it's wrist. It's chest plate had been partially removed, and it was missing half of it's stomach. Instead, there was only a gaping hole full of wires and delicate circuitry.  
  
The technician held up a small, metal gadget for him to inspect.  
  
"I think it's the jugular unit. What do you think? Should we try and rewire it?"  
  
He gave it a brief glance and shook his head.  
  
"No, I'd replace the whole unit rather than try and repair it."  
  
The technician turned to a small cabinet situated beside the table and, opening a drawer, began to riffle through it.  
  
"With a ten?" the technician asked, withdrawing the piece from the drawer.  
  
"Use an XX-fifty, if we have any in stock. The double X's have a longer lifespan."  
  
More riffling, and the technician located the proper piece. Nakamura watched as the technician placed it into the metal chasm that was the zombie's stomach, and gently began to adjust it with a pair of tweezers – almost like a surgeon preforming a crucial operation.  
  
"A fifty may not fit in here." the technician said after a moment.  
  
"Maybe you can shift the integrator unit further into the cavity." Nakamura specified, and pointed to the upper part of the stomach for reference.  
  
"I'll try it."  
  
Nakamura left, pausing at another table to review a broken horse.  
  
"Balance servo again?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, he fell over this afternoon. I think it's the sensor. If it's the central unit we'll open him up."  
  
"You get a confirmation before you do that."  
  
He came to a third table, spotting a viking this time.  
  
"What's he in for?"  
  
"Central malfunction."  
  
"Another one?"  
  
Nakamura made a mental note and moved on. He passed by another viking – a young maiden with braided hair, sprawled across a table, the tips of electrodes taped to her temples. The cords ran down from the tabletop and across the floor to a large, modified medical monitor. Every so often it gave off a round of high pitched beeps in conjunction with the robot's internal cycle shift. He stopped to examine her – the technician held a large surgical light over her face, shinning the beam directly into her eye.  
  
"An upgrade?" asked Nakamura.  
  
"Mmm." was the distracted reply.  
  
While the technicians themselves were dressed in static-free clean suits (unflattering, but necessary garments for their line of work), Nakamura was easily identified as an authority figure by the long white lab coat that he wore. He was called on for assistance several more times before he finally left the repair bay.  
  
The corridors below the realms were cold and sterile, lit by orb-like lamps mounted on either side of the wall. During the day they were eerily empty, but when night fell the bustle of the workers echoed through the maze of hallways, and seemed to bring the place to life. Firdos had been built to require minimal staff, the majority of the park relying on automation, but the few employees that there were seemed happy to occupy the space.

As he walked along Nakamura caught the fragments of sentences hurriedly spoken by the people rushing around him. Technicians scrambling to return to their posts at the repair bay, more collection teams preparing to gather another round of robots, engineers and electricians making calculations out loud.  
  
While the guests above slept, the business ensued beneath them.  
  
 _Never a moment to spare_ , thought Nakamura as he turned a corner.  
  
He had spent the last seven years of his life working as head of engineering and control at the Firdos resort, having beforehand worked as an imagineer at Tokyo's Disneyland and Ghibli Museum. He had been offered the position at Firdos back in 2084, a year after the Zombie-realm had opened, and the abandonment of his Disneyland job had been seen by many as a treacherous, and potentially foolish move. But at the time Nakamura had considered the transition to be a new and exciting opportunity – a chance to become a part of something he considered (at the time) to be truly unique.  
  
However, the recent decline of what he had once thought was a fairly well-maintained network now plagued him with doubt. He did not necessarily regret taking the job at Firdos, but as the problems continued to arise, and in growing numbers, it occurred to him that he may have made his decision a tad bit too hastily.  
  
His wife – a religious woman who firmly believed Firdos was a foul place that promoted violence and hedonism – would have agreed, but her argument was an old one, and he had since learned to tune it out. Money was money, and he was the one with the career that funded her various hobbies. Today was a Saturday, and that meant Rebecca would have gone riding at the club with the other wealthy women of the neighborhood, and the following weekend she would participate in the church bake sale and raffle, if only to show off the new set of pearls he planned to buy her. Their house on the mainland was practically a mansion, the dresses she wore were elegant and practical, and while she preached about the wickedness of Firdos when he was there to hear it, despite her dislike of the place she never once suggested that he quit.  
  
Of course, if Firdos continued to spiral into decay, he might not have a job she could complain about for very much longer.  
  
Wearily he paced the hallway outside his office, thoughts dark with concern. He would speak to the board of directors shortly through a teleconference, and while he was prepared for the meeting – notes and graphs revised in advance – he was not prepared for what he would need to tell them. He thought keenly about the phrasing he would use. If the problems continued to progress, a systems shutdown would need to be enacted to preserve the integrity of the resort. Otherwise, the network might become affected and go offline permanently – plunging Firdos into complete disarray.  
  
It would not be an easy point to make, and he knew they would not want to hear it. The board members were all stubborn minded, and believed Firdos to be a flawless creation, the performance of which could be nothing but perfect at all times. They did not believe there could ever be a problem, let alone many. They saw Firdos only from the outside, whereas Nakamura had a perfect view of the issues from where they were occurring.  
  
And the situation was becoming bad.  
  
Nakamura checked his watch, took a breath, and opened the door to his office. It was a cramped little room full of file cabinets and book shelves and random pieces of electronica scattered here and there, but considering how little time he had devoted to keeping things clean, there wasn't much dust, and everything was well enough organized.  
  
His hours were lengthy, his shift a week long at a time. A cot had been placed in the far left corner, his bed away from home, and while there were no windows, he had decorated the adjacent wall with grainy Polaroid's of his wife and their friends, along with magazine cutouts of relaxing landscapes. Mountains and tropical volcanoes that he could stare at before he fell asleep.    
  
Walking over to his desk, he switched his computer on and took a seat. He waited, picking up the cordless phone beside the monitor and dialing out. It always took a moment for his computer to connect to the wireless network (it made sense, with how far underground they were), and it took a further moment to get the board members on the line.  
  
When he had internet access, and the screen-sharing program was up and running, he pressed the speaker-button on the phone – activating the intercom. He listened as the crackling voices of his superiors greeted him. Skipping the formalities, Nakamura dove right in.    
  
"Gentlemen, I appreciate you taking the time to conference with me this evening." he began, tone dour. "I know it's late – but we're nocturnal creatures here below the crust, and frankly I didn't think this could wait."  
  
He held his breath for argument, and received none.  
  
Continuing, he said "Can you all see the figures that I'm sending you?"  
  
They grumbled in the affirmative.  
  
"Good. Now, since we opened the resort we had a failure and breakdown rate conforming to computer predictions. That is, zero-point-three malfunctions for each twenty-four-hour activation period, concurrent or not." he informed them, and as he spoke a series of images flashed across his computer screen; charts and graphs illustrating the rate of decline, elaborate strings of data, numbered pictures of various robots in the repair bay.  
  
"Now, this was an anticipated operations aspect of the resort and we were fully able to handle it." he hastily clarified, "And the majority of the breakdowns were minor or peripheral. Until about six weeks ago. Then, the Viking-realm had a rise in breakdown rate which doubled in a week."  
  
Another image appeared on screen for the board members to review.  
  
"In addition, we saw a disproportionate rise in central as opposed to peripheral breakdowns." he said stiffly, and this time a bar graph relating the breakdowns with one another was projected on the screen.  
  
"We identified some problems with humidity control, and regained homeostasis. Despite our corrections, the breakdown rate continued to climb. Then the Zombie-realm began to have trouble. Now we're seeing more Pirate-realm breakdowns." he explained, sounding grim. "And there's a clear pattern here which suggests an analogy to an infectious disease process spreading from one resort area to the next."  
  
One of the board members spoke up – Adam Stoker, by the sounds of it.  
  
"Perhaps there are superficial similarities to disease. But there are many ways to order that data." argued Stoker, voice thick over the intercom.  
  
"I must confess," he heard another of the board members – Kathy Fielding this time – say. "I find it difficult to believe that the problem is really all that bad."  
  
Now Darrel Stimpson, the chairman and chief executive officer voiced his opinion. "Yes, you can't actually be talking about a computer virus, here. Everybody knows our machines are impervious to malware or any other form of foreign, destructive code."  
  
"With all due respect, Mr. Stimpson," Nakamura began carefully, "The statistics show a clear indicator that _something_ is spreading through the network, and corrupting our robots."  
  
"And even though you haven't been able to identify it, you think it's a virus. Why?" asked Stimpson gruffly.  
  
"Well, we aren't dealing with ordinary machines here. I'm saying that this may not be a _foreign_ virus at all." he established. "These are highly complicated pieces of equipment. Almost as complicated as living organisms. In some cases, they've been designed by other computers. We don't know exactly how they work. So it may be the case that they've developed . . ."  
  
He paused, searching for a good way to put it.  
  
"It may be the case that they've developed a kind of electronic antibody, something that's interfering with their central programming. If left un-checked, it could turn into something that allows them to completely disregard their programming altogether."  
  
"Just what are you suggesting, Nakamura? That this is some sort of self-sabotage?" Stimpson inquired, skeptical.  
  
"No, sir. Nothing like that. At least, if it is self-sabotage, it certainly isn't purposeful. Our robots were designed to learn, to react. Would it not be feasible to assume that they might evolve like this – to go beyond their base programming? Again, on an electronic level. If they have, it's clearly interfering with how they're supposed to operate. It may be a type of inner-conflict, to put it in layman's terms."    
  
The board members spoke amongst themselves, discussing the possibilities.  
  
"The truth is – we don't know precisely what's causing the problem, but I'm fairly sure it's internal."  
  
"Nevertheless," Stimpson asserted, "I don't want the term virus being thrown around. It could have bad connotations."  
  
"What do you suggest we do to remedy the problem, Doctor Nakamura?" asked Stoker.  
  
"I recommend a full shutdown and restart of the system." he replied confidently. "It will take us back to ground one, and if the breakdowns return, we'll have time to pinpoint the cause."  
  
"And just how much time would all of that take?"  
  
"To be safe," said Nakamura, "I'd like at least two or three months, starting as soon as possible. That should be a sufficient amount of time for us to locate and eliminate the cause of the problem, and get the system back online and functioning properly."  
  
Outrage from the board members.  
  
"You can't be serious?" scoffed Stoker.  
  
"Three months?" cried Stimpson, voice booming over the intercom. "Do you have any idea what the revenue loss would be if we kept Firdos closed for _three months?_ "  
  
"But sir," Nakamura pleaded, "If we allow the problem to continue it could threaten the entire park. _Everything_ could stop working."  
  
"That's impossible, isn't it?" Fielding said, indignantly. "The park has multiple security features to prevent that sort of thing from happening."  
  
"Yes, but those security features tie in to the network, and the network might become jeopardized if these problems persist."  
  
"I'm looking at the same data you are, Nakamura," said Fielding, "And I just don't see how you can make that assessment from these figures alone. There's been a little bug here or there, sure – but for heavens sake, it doesn't seem like the end of the world to me."  
  
"Absolutely right. There _is_ no problem here, Nakamura." roared Stimpson, audibly displeased now. "And if there is then it's with your team, because, surely, you would have been able to solve it by now."  
  
Nakamura bit his tongue in an effort to remain professional.  
  
"Sir," he started, as tactfully as he could, "We've been _trying_ to solve it. But with everything else our engineers and technicians are busy with, we just haven't been able to devote the full amount of our attentions to the task. What I'm asking for is a slice of time where it can be our main focus. We can save the system and keep the network secure, if we've got the time."  
  
"Out of the question." declared Stimpson. "We can't spare the time or the resources to save a system that I doubt needs any saving at all. We have a critical trial occurring right now, and another one scheduled at the end of the month. That should be the priority here, not a few small instances of a robot falling over or walking into a wall."  
  
"Oh, yes," Fielding said happily, abruptly changing the subject. "And just how are the testers enjoying the Prehistoric-realm, Nakamura?"  
  
"I'm afraid I haven't received the report yet." Nakamura confessed. "I'll be meeting with Dan Dawson shortly to discuss how the tour went. He's in charge of overseeing this first trial. Once I have the report I'll send it along to the rest of you."  
  
"Be sure not to omit anything, now." Fielding ordered excitedly. "We have a lot of investors in on this one."  
  
"This virus –  _not_ -virus – whatever you want to call it," Stoker interjected, "It wouldn't have affected the new realm, would it?"  
  
"I'm not sure." Nakamura replied anxiously. "Much of the technology is newer, and several of the robots don't rely as heavily on the network, so there could be a chance that –  _if_ the problem were to spread to the Prehistoric-realm – it would remain mostly unaffected."  
  
It was a theory, and Nakamura hoped it was correct. The board members had quite a bit relying on the success of the Prehistoric-realm (he was well aware of it), but that part of the park was so new, and he knew so little about what was causing the rest of the breakdowns. At this point, it was far too soon to accurately speculate.  
  
"But if there _are_ problems?" Stoker insisted.  
  
"If there are it's excusable." Stimpson snapped. "It's a trial, for God sake. We're expecting there to be an issue or two. That's why we have the trials – to spot the problem areas and smooth them over."  
  
"Yes, and those issues likely won't have anything to do with what's happening with the rest of the park." added Fielding reassuringly.  
  
Nakamura rubbed his temples, frustrated. They didn't understand, and despite his attempts, he couldn't make them. It appeared he was on his own.  
  
With a sigh, he said "You're all aware of the problem, that there is a problem. We've got robots breaking down daily here, and my team and I will continue to do the best we can with the resources and time that we've been given."  
  
"I should hope so." said Stimpson. "But don't forget – your primary concern, for the moment, should be making sure the first trial for the Prehistoric-realm goes well. I want nothing but good reviews from the testers. Is that understood?"  
  
"Yes, sir." replied Nakamura, feeling genuinely defeated. "I'll send the tour report along as soon as I get it."  
  
And with that, the conference call came to an end.  
  
Nakamura sat alone in the silence for a good five minutes in an effort to clear his mind before eventually standing up. There was a small mini-fridge on the other side of the desk. Walking over to it, he grabbed the bottle of vodka hidden behind his brown paper lunch bag and took a few, shaky sips.  
  
He was at a loss for what step to take next.  
  
He had looked at the equipment. He had looked at the signals. He had looked at the human factor and all of the extenuating circumstances. He had been thorough, and everything he'd found had told him that the problem didn't have an outside cause. But none of what he'd seen had told him what the cause could be, and he had exhausted most of the commonly dealt-with possibilities. It was deeply frustrating, and to be so disbelieved, so limited by the men in charge – it was almost insulting.   
  
But what else could he do? He had brought his case to their court, and they had thrown it out. On what grounds, he wasn't entirely sure, but now it was settled. He would just have to keep an eye on it, do the best he could, and hope to hell things didn't progress to an unmanageable level.  
  
When the vodka bottle had been safely stored back inside the fridge, he made his way out of his office and back down the corridor, walking with a purpose. Heading through the east wing, he gradually came to the central control hub.  
  
Arriving outside the entrance he waved his security badge across the scanner and heard the electric locks click out of place. The heavy metal door slid open with a hiss, disappearing into a gap between the wall panels, and Nakamura stepped casually into the control hub.  
  
The design of the hub was circular, and housed nine rows of large, double-screened consoles – six per row, making fifty four computers in total. The back wall was one, long, curving master-screen that displayed various, rotating images of the various realms at all times. When Nakamura had first come to Firdos, he had associated the hub with the mission control at the Huston space launches. Nothing but blinking buttons and mathematicians in short sleeved dress shirts and black bow ties. They sat at their stations, eyes locked on their screens, eading lines of code that were near-indecipherable and talking continuously into headphone speakers.  
  
"I'm not getting around pickup from the tenth quadrant."  
  
"Okay, my telemetry is good. Report, I have good telemetry."  
  
"All right, then give me a four-thirty-six, if you can patch that in. If not, four-thirty-five."  
  
"I have sound now. Thank you very much."  
  
The air inside the control hub was regulated by a system of vents in the ceiling, and was kept at a cool sixty one degrees fahrenheit in order to help the productivity of the workers, and the functionality of the computers. Neon lights flickered overhead, and the crisp repetitive hum of electricity blended into the background; a pleasant, familiar noise that was easily neglected after so many years spent listening to it.  
  
Nakamura headed down the slope of short steps that divided the room, and came to the console of Daniel Dawson.  
  
Dawson was a burly, dark-skinned man with bright, hazel eyes. He was good at his job, and Nakamura respected him for it. Currently, Dawson's face was bathed in the ghostly glow of his computer screen, and he did not look up, even when Nakamura tapped him on the shoulder.  
  
"Hey," said Dawson, turning slightly in his swivel-chair. He already knew who it was. "How went the conference, friend?"  
  
Nakamura scowled.  
  
"Oh, you know, same as usual. They heard what they wanted to. None of it was what I said."  
  
"So it went well?" Dawson joked.  
  
"They want to see the report on the tour, if you've got it."  
  
"I do. Two seconds, I'll bring it up."  
  
Nakamura leaned over his shoulder, eyes on the console screen.  
  
"How did it go?"  
  
"Well," Dawson began, cracking his knuckles, "The guests didn't see anything for the first hour, and that's attributed to three different no-shows at the head of the herbivore trail."  
  
"Christ."  
  
"Yeah, we think it had something to do with the fact that their motion sensors weren't set off. Might need to recalibrate those before the next trial." he explained, stretching his arms over his head.  
  
"Hm." grunted Nakamura. "And what else?"  
  
"The dilophosaurus malfunctioned. Didn't follow it's territorial instinct. It wandered out of the carnivore trail and onto the herbivore trail." Dawson explained, and he brought up a map of the various trails. Overlapping them was the route the dilophosaurus had apparently taken, along with indications of timing.  
  
"It's all right, though," Dawson assured him. "The guests seemed pretty happy to see the thing, but we ought to have one of the boys check on that. Maybe Eddie, if he's got the time."  
  
"Yeah." groaned Nakamura, rubbing his eyes. "It'll be item number one-fifty-one on his glitch list. How'd the rest of it go?"  
  
"Not too bad, all things considered." said Dawson smugly. "The majority of the problems were minor, and most of them were to do with the jungle models anyway. Like we predicted."  
  
"Right. Listen, run a remote diagnostics check on that dilophosaur for me, would you? I'd like to look it over tonight, determine whether or not to pull it off the trail and bring it in for inspection."  
  
"You got it, sir."  
  
With that, Nakamura turned and headed for the door.  
  
"Sir?" Dawson called after him. "There's just one more thing I think you ought to take a look at."  
  
Nakamura slumped. The night was dragging out horribly.  
  
Returning to Dawson's console he saw a pair of images displayed on the screen, side by side – images that vaguely resembled EKGs. Compared with one another, the intervals on the left screen were far taller than the right, and below the initial wave line was a secondary line, jagged and peaking in highlighted red.  
  
"What is this?"  
  
"It's a primary readout of two of the guide models, sir. The one on the right is preforming normally, but the one on the left there appears to be – well, I'm not actually sure if it's a malfunction or –"  
  
Nakamura cut him off.  
  
"It's like it's running a secondary cycle along with it's primary one. Now why would it be doing that?"  
  
"Not sure." Dawson shrugged. "Maybe it's trying to compute some extra data? Like, data it isn't familiar with?"  
  
Nakamura's face hardened. It was a possibility, but even so, he didn't like it. He hoped to god it wasn't another central breakdown.  
  
"I can try and stop the secondary cycle with a force-quit, if you want." Dawson offered, sensing Nakamura's agitation.  
  
"No, let's not. It might interfere with the primary cycle, and that could effect the robot's behavior. The guest it's assigned to might notice if it starts acting strangely. And lord knows we can't have the _guides_ make a bad impression, now can we." Nakamura sighed. "Let's make a note of it for now, and do a debug after this trial ends."  
  
Dawson nodded and scribbled a quick reminder onto his notepad, positioned beside the keyboard.  
  
"What if the guide doesn't respond, sir?" he ventured.  
  
"Full restart and memory wipe ought to take care of the problem, if it persists." cited Nakamura. "Which guest does it belong to?"  
  
Dawson flipped through the files on his desktop until he found the list of testers.  
  
"The woman, I think. Yes, here it is. The anomaly came to our attention during the tour – about twenty minutes in. I think she was complaining about the heat, and we got a request from the guide to turn it down."  
  
Nakamura sighed again.  
  
"We'll have to include that in the report."  
  
"About the heat, you mean?"  
  
"I'm afraid so. The board members want to know how _everything_ went." Nakamura sneered.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
A beat.  
  
"Was that all, then, Dan?" Nakamura asked impatiently. All he wanted to do was retreat to the cot in his office and sleep.  
  
Dawson smiled at him, giving him his cue to leave. Quickly, he slipped out of the room before anybody else had the chance to fire another question at him. As the entrance door slid shut, the banter continued amongst the technicians.  
  
"We have sunrise at zero-point-forty-three. Ready on all quadrants. Energize grid."  
  
"Wait a minute. What was that? No grounding on Unit Five?"  
  
"Try a bypass. I have readings on all units, Five included."  
  
"Hold on a minute. All right, let's stand by for resort activation."  
  
"You ready on Phase four-forty-three? Okay, we are going to activate at fifty-nine."  
  
"Lower gain Alpha two."  
  
"Ready on six, on five, on four, on three, on two. Active _now_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to take a second and say thank you so much for all of your comments and kudos!
> 
> Knowing people are reading and enjoying this story is pushing me to write and update as often as I can. I'm so happy you like it so far and I hope you continue to enjoy it! 
> 
> Thanks again!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions of artificial intelligence and synthetic emotion come up as Joanna gets to know Thomas better during her second day in the Prehistoric-realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took ages to get out and I apologize for the delay. It was a while before I could completely collect my thoughts and organize everything I wanted to put down in it. Overall, the chapter contains a fair amount of exposition, but it’s also got some of the first real, private interaction between Borton and Thomas. I had to research artificial intelligence as well, along with the theoretical ways robotic sentience could possibly come about, and I also got to try my hand at the first hints of a blossoming friendship between the two main characters. So I hope everything blends well together, and that you all enjoy it. Comments and critiques are always welcome!
> 
> (Random fun fact: I've had to start using line breaks because of how much I crammed into this chapter. I may go back and add them in to past chapters if I feel it's appropriate.)

  _. . . Sunday: Two days before total systems failure . . ._

 

At dawn the jungle was very quiet, save for the few, distant bird calls carried on the early morning breeze.  
  
Borton wished she couldn't hear them.  
  
Originally, she had planned to sleep in that morning, her first in the Prehistoric-realm, but at half past six she had groggily come into consciousness, taking several uncertain seconds to remember where she was. And at five to seven, she was disappointed to find herself wide awake and unable to do anything about it. She was too used to her Hollywood schedule, and despite being on vacation, her body was normally up and active by this point in the day. She tossed and turned, keeping her eyes sternly shut, but it did no good. She kept feeling like she absolutely had to be up, otherwise time was being wasted.  
  
With an angry huff she rose onto her elbows, eyes still cloudy, and saw Thomas at the end of the bed. She had almost forgotten about the six foot tall mechanical velociraptor, and the shock of seeing him there, seemingly waiting for her to rouse, gave her a tremendous start.  
  
 _Jesus – did he not move at all last night?_  
  
"Tom?" she asked, voice small.  
  
He blinked and shook his head like he was coming out of a trance.  
  
"Good morning, Joanna." he piped excitedly. "At ten, a breakfast buffet will be available in the common room for all visiting guests. But I would be happy to serve you something to eat now, if you prefer."  
  
Dazed, she said "Um – No thanks, buddy. I'm really not hungry yet."  
  
The room remained relatively dark, and Borton watched as Thomas moved across the carpet to the curtains and drew them open with the lever. Instantly there was sunlight, and her visioned blurred as the brightness hit her. She blinked several times before she could see again.  
  
Peeling the blankets off of herself, she climbed out of the bed and stumbled haphazardly into the bathroom. As she reached for the toothpaste she caught a glimpse of face in the mirror and was taken aback. Her hair was a disheveled mess and her nose was pink and runny, but to her surprise, she looked rested. Not completely rested – there were still significant bags under her eyes. But they had lessened, and enough for her to notice.  
  
She took a moment to check herself over and found that, while she was still more or less worn out, she felt better. Refreshed, even. Just a small amount of time spent outside of the workshop had already done wonders for her.  
  
Borton smiled, suddenly fine with being up early.  
  
"Any improvement is a big one, kido" she beamed, and grabbed her hairbrush.  
  
When she came out of the bathroom again, looking a bit more presentable, she found a pile of freshly folded clothing on the floor in front of the bed. A new outfit that Thomas had set aside for the day. Retreating back into the bathroom, she quickly changed out of her pajamas, and when next she came out the scent of lemon dish soap filled the room. Thomas stood by the sink, rinsing the breakfast bowl from the morning before.  
  
Borton hesitated in the doorway of the bathroom, unsure of what to do with herself. Today she had no list of tasks, nothing she had to complete in order to move on. There was no unfinished whale to daunt her, no production agenda to follow. Today she was free to do whatever she liked, so long as it coincided with what the guides had planned for the group. Even so, knowing that her workshop – that all the things she had left to finish were currently hundreds of miles away filled her with a strange mixture of confusion and glee.  
  
Unable to recall the last time she had been given the option to just sit still, she settled on watching some television.   
  
The tour had done a number on her legs, leaving them stiff and sore. As she took a seat on the couch she felt her knees crack painfully, and decided she really needed to get more exercise. Easing back into the cushions, she picked up the remote and started flicking through the viewing options. There wasn't much to pick from, apart from the typical Sunday morning cartoons and one or two family films. Eventually she settled on a show she was vaguely familiar with (something Japanese, with a teenage heroine that could morph into a pterodactyl).  
  
While Borton relaxed, Thomas set about doing a host of small chores. She was pleased to discover how efficient (if not fastidious) a housekeeper he was. Because of his programming he was meant to switch from tour guide to hotel maid whenever he had a spare moment, and therefore kept everything remarkably tidy when there was time available. Presently he did the dishes, made the bed, dusted, and vacuumed. Every task was accomplished with relative ease – owing to the intricate dexterity and boundless energy he had been built with. Borton found it nothing short of miraculous to watch him scurry around the room, cleaning this and rearranging that.  
  
At one point Borton patted the spot beside her and smiled, motioning for him to take a break. Thomas looked at the couch, tempted, but ultimately refused. It was nearly eleven when he had finished, and by then Borton was practically starving. Together, the two of them made their way down to the common room for brunch.  
  
Arriving at the common room Borton saw a long salad bar in the space by the kitchenette. It was filled with a variety of delectable-looking breakfast foods, most of which she recognized. Waffles, bacon, sausage, yogurt, a host of different fruits. An automatic chef had even been positioned at the far end of the bar to act as a griddle, dispensing pancakes shaped like dinosaur footprints.  
  
She wondered when the buffet had been set up, and by who.   
  
Across the room McCullough sat eating his breakfast at one of the rounded tables. He was the only other guest there, and his guide was mysteriously absent. When he caught sight of Borton he immediately flagged her over.   
  
"Oy! Jo! Try the waffles. They're terrific!" he called out to her, mouth full of food.  
  
Borton smiled and made her way over to him. Coming up behind her, Thomas said "I would be happy to retrieve food for you, Joanna."  
  
"Oh, sure. If you want to." she said, approaching the table.  
  
He rounded her – "What would you like?"  
  
"Just get me whatever you think is best. I'm not picky." she told him, gesturing to the buffet.  
  
Before she had a chance to do it for herself, Thomas was there at the table side, pulling her chair out with a courteous flick of his wrist.  
  
"Thank you." she replied, a little awkwardly, and took a seat as he pushed the chair back under her.  
  
When Thomas was at the buffet, Borton turned to McCullough and asked if he had slept well.  
  
"Fantastic!" he exclaimed. "The beds here are brilliant, don't you think?"  
  
"A lot softer than my box spring at home, that's for sure. You watch any of the TV here, yet?"  
  
"Aye." said McCullough, "Mad stuff, that. I had it on when Abrams came to interview me this morning."  
  
"Oh, yeah? How did that go?" she asked him, elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands.  
  
"Are you kidding? I told him I love the place. It's phenomenal here. And this bit, this new bit, they've really outdone themselves with it haven't they. The kids are going to go ape over it."  
  
"If they don't mind getting pelted with dinosaur gloop every so often." she remarked, poking fun.  
  
Thomas shouted from the buffet; "I'm very sorry, Joanna, but there are no more omelets. May I interest you in some waffles, instead?"  
  
Borton blushed, chagrined – "It's fine, Tom. Just get me whatever. I honestly don't mind."  
  
"I'm very, very sorry." she heard him bark sadly.  
  
"It's _fine_ , Tom." she insisted. With an exasperated sigh she faced McCullough. "Are the rest of them this polite?"  
  
"Unfortunately not." McCullough laughed, chewing on a piece of sausage. "Personally, I suspect the AI's been upgraded since the last time I was here. These guide models are much more . . . How should I put it?"  
  
"Insanely well-mannered?" she joked.  
  
"I'd have gone with personable." he grinned. "At least compared to the robots in the other realms. And I'll tell you something else. I've done a lot of artificial intelligence work in my time – programmed interactive game characters, written whole personality constructs – and, well, I'm sort of amazed at how convincingly these guys are able to emulate emotion."  
  
"Me, too." admitted Borton.  
  
She could hear the scraping of Thomas' claws as he picked up a pair of serving tongs. Replaying the events of the tour in her mind, she concluded that, while Thomas' behavior had been somewhat on the strange side, it had been very realistic, very natural.  
  
"Very _believable_." she added after a moment.  
  
McCullough nodded.  
  
"Makes me wonder what would happen if we tried giving one of them the Turing Test." he speculated openly. "Your Tom, there, would probably pass it."  
  
Borton shot him a quizzical look.  
  
"What's the Turing Test?"  
  
McCullough swallowed the bite of sausage and replied "Something developed by Alan Turing. He wanted to try and answer the question of whether or not machines could think. You might know it as the Imitation Game? It's great fun at parties."  
  
"I'm afraid I don't go to many parties." Borton confessed, slightly embarrassed. "Apart from the Oscars. But that's really more of a ceremony, isn't it. How do you play, exactly?"  
  
"It's not too tricky." McCullough assured her, and he tried to explain the test in as minimal a way as he could manage, taking care not to overwhelm her with too many details. He described in simple terms how a human judge was meant to engage with two subjects, both of them on the other side of a curtain or wall. One would be a human, and the other would usually be a computer, and if the judge couldn't tell which was witch, then the computer essentially passed the test. The game could also be played with a man and a woman, with one impersonating the other.  
  
McCullough put it bluntly – "It's pretty much a game of who's the better actor."  
  
"And you think these bots could pass it." Borton summed up, glancing over her shoulder at Thomas. He was currently spooning wadded cantaloupe into a bowl for her.    
  
"Probably. If deep learning were factored in." specified McCullough.  
  
While Borton's knowledge of AI coding was rudimentary at best, she had at least heard of deep learning. Rather than write everything down and program it into a robot (which would take a great deal of forethought and effort, as well as the ability to calculate every possible situation said robot might encounter), one could potentially program a sophisticated set of algorithms in that would allow the robot to learn on its own.  
  
"It could crucially, and exponentially refine and improve the quality and quantity of learning." McCullough went on haughtily. "With that kind of method, a robot would know more about love and psychology, and while the software might not have been built to feel, it might arrive at copying emotion on it's own. The performance it gave could be near indistinguishable from real emotion. Of course, in the end, it would all still be the act, wouldn't it." he added with a dismissive flail of his wrist.  
  
"Yeah, I guess it would." she agreed, watching as Thomas struggled to reach under the sneeze-guard and grab her a fresh croissant.  
  
"I mean, just because an actor convinces us he's Hamlet, well that doesn't actually make him the prince of Denmark, now does it." McCullough noted, and Borton gave an amused snort.  
  
Just then Thomas reappeared with a tray of food for her – waffles, eggs, fruit, a fresh cup of coffee. When the tray had been placed in front of her Thomas again withdrew, this time to the opposite side of the room. There he stood, coiled into himself, hushed and vigilant. He did not takes his eyes off of Borton, and while she could feel his constant gaze boring uncomfortably into the back of her head, she did her best to ignore him and eat the food he had brought her.  
  
McCullough removed his glasses and began wiping the lenses with a damp napkin. Borton thought he looked very different without them. His features were softened significantly.  
  
"But who knows." he suggested fondly, "Maybe, way off in the future they'll build robots capable of emotion. Wouldn't surprise me if we even get emergent sentience at Firdos one day."  
  
With his glasses still off he stared vacantly into space.  
  
"You know I always wanted that to happen to one of my game characters." he mentioned casually. "I'd just be sitting there, writing a line of code – making up a character whose soul purpose was to follow a path on an in-game map, or something silly like that. I'd program it to learn and adapt like I always do and then, wa-la. Life."  
  
Borton smiled at the concept.  
  
"I like that." she said. "Sort of like that old scifi story where the scientists put a petri dish full of fungus under a sun-lamp. They wind up growing themselves a tiny village full of mold-people." she recalled, sipping her coffee. "Even though they didn't mean to."  
  
He stretched in his chair, and she could tell he was happy to be talking about a subject he clearly knew a lot about.  
  
"Asimov was positive it would only happen by accident, yeah." McCullough said, sounding comfortable. "He figured life would grow by chance, and not if you deliberately tried for it."  
  
"Makes sense." said Borton, and it did, to an extent. After all – what was biological life but a series of strange, cosmic accidents?  
  
"Then again," McCullough considered aloud, "In a couple of decades, you could probably build a robot with emotion if you really tried. It'd be pretty unsophisticated, mind you. But technology's advancing so quickly nowadays. Do you know what a quantum computer is?"  
  
Borton frowned. "Sorry, no."  
  
"Not a lot of folks do. It's something they're working on."  
  
"They?"  
  
"Oh, everybody." said McCullough, "Governments, space programs, even this place I wager. It's the next big step in computing. Nobody's got it quite right yet, though. It's pretty complicated stuff. See, because of the way quantum computers would work – being able to exist in multiple states at the same time and all – it would –"  
  
She raised her hand, instantly confused.  
  
"Erm, like, no more binary." he clarified, backtracking. "Instead of one or the other, ones or zeros, it can be both a one and a zero simultaneously. You get it?"  
  
She didn't, but lied anyway – "I think so."  
  
"Yes sir-ree." McCullough professed, "If they were using quantum computers, Firdos could purposefully build a machine to feel."  
  
"Could they really. Hmm." Borton replied, taking a quick bite of cantaloupe. It was very sweet.  
  
"Sure." McCullough asserted confidently. "It's not that difficult. It all depends on how you write their artificial intelligence. See, it's pretty obvious that most of these robots have a politburo AI architecture. A mind that's top-down, bureaucratic, made up of sub-routines on top of sub-routines. Basically, a mind that never worries about its needs – a mind that's just a willing slave. No emotion. Just a structure controlled by edicts."  
  
"Right." said Borton, leaning forward, fascinated. It had been a long time since she'd had an in-depth technological conversation with anybody. Most of the interns at the workshop didn't know enough for her to bother asking them, and the directors and producers she met with were absolutely clueless.  
  
"Well, suppose, in a few decades time when they have that technology – quantum computers I mean." McCullough proposed, "Suppose they gave these newer robots AI architecture that was more democratic. More human, if you will. Biological nervous systems in general have no boss, no top-down hierarchy. Instead you've got a lot of opposing, competing components. Hell, that's the only difference between man and machine, isn't it. When it comes right down to it, humans are nothing but big, biological robots anyway. And emotion is just another construct – we're just doing what we're programmed to do by our genes."  
  
Borton listened intently as he told her about the Computational Theory of Mind, and how he believed that the human brain was just a big, mushy computer.  
  
"It processes information, like a computer, and our mind is the software program that it exists to run." he elucidated. "But the major difference is that we, as human beings, are selfish. Right down to our individual neurons. Each cell has it's own agendas, it's own needs. It's own wants. They're trying to stay alive. Sure, you could argue that robots are programmed to self preserve too –"  
  
"That was brought up yesterday, actually." Borton broke in.  
  
"Ah," said McCullough, guileful, "But there's a different, isn't there."  
  
Borton nodded, nibbling on a bit of waffle.  
  
"That self preservation function is likely something that's been programmed into them, but not in the same way it's been programmed into us. With us, it's instinct."  
  
Borton spoke, mouth half full of waffle. "The reason they don't jump off a cliff is because the engineers probably don't want to have to rebuild them. And the reason we don't jump off a cliff is because we want to survive." she stated, reiterating the point she made the day before, during her interview.  
  
McCullough gaped at her. "That was expertly put, Jo."  
  
She gave him a sly smile. "I have my moments." she said, washing the waffle down with a quick swig of coffee.  
  
"Well, at any rate, we have a sense of self and we want to maintain it." he concluded candidly.  
  
"So," Borton replied, "What you're saying is, it all depends on a robot having intentions of it's own, correct?"  
  
"Correct."  
  
"And a – a what – a democratic architecture gives us that result?"  
  
"Technically, yes, it could. If a robot had the mind of a human, or a mind like a human's – had that selfish bit of it – it would be possible for it to develop human emotions. And you could program a democratic AI architecture easily if your operating system was on a quantum computer."  
  
"Hell." she muttered, straining to follow.  
  
"Makes your head spin, doesn't it." he teased.  
  
"Only a lot." she quipped.  
  
"Oh, but can't you just imagine it?" He sounded absolutely thrilled at the prospect. "What would it be like if the robots here had emotion? Real emotion? It'd be terrific."  
  
Borton thought it over. While there was bound to be an aspect of uncanny-valley that would accompany it, if she pushed away the niggling sense of unease that it brought, she found that the possibilities of robots with real emotions were almost limitless, and surprisingly – very exciting.  
  
If robots could feel, then they could create ways to express those feelings.  
  
A quick flash of the flower crown Thomas had given her, now stored safely in the top drawer of her hotel room dresser.     
  
Borton pictured an amusement park full of clockwork poets, mechanical comedians. Animatronic artists. She grinned, envisioning her robots on set – the ones she had built in her workshop – standing behind the camera instead of in front of it. Robots directing a film, tireless eyes and keen, creative minds striving for that perfect shot. Working off of a script written by another robot, a robot that gave the main characters real emotional depth, a robot that wrote the kind of story worthy of an award.  
  
Her dad would have been tickled pink to have seen something like that.  
  
"Just terrific." McCullough said again.  
  
Before Borton could respond a voice cut her off –  
  
"I, uh – I have to disagree with you, Errol."  
  
She turned to see Irvine approaching the table, his guide in tow.   
  
McCullough flashed them a smile.  
  
"Ahoy-hoy, Henry! Come on over, there's room!" he bellowed cheerfully, disregarding Irvine's argument.  
  
As Irvine came closer Borton noticed that he looked about ready to drop. He took a seat between them, his expression sagging.  
  
"Have a good sleep, did we?" asked McCullough.  
  
"Not really. I, uhm, tend to have trouble sleeping in strange beds." Irvine grumbled.  
  
It turned out vacationer's insomnia was one of the primary reasons Irvine hardly ever traveled. He had gotten less than an hour's worth of sleep and blamed it almost entirely on his condition. Though it hadn't helped that his guide had refused to stop pestering him over the course of the night.  
  
"It kept trying to sing me a lullaby." he muttered miserably. "Do you remember what I was talking about yesterday? How I said there would be problems letting the dinosaurs babysit kids?"  
  
"Don't tell me you think they'll be scared of dinosaurs that sing lullabies, now." Borton mocked playfully.  
  
"No, I'm afraid they'll be scarred by dinosaurs that sing lullabies, actually." Irvine disclosed nervously.  
  
Borton blinked, sure she hadn't heard him right. "Sorry, did you say _scarred_?"  
  
"Not physically, you understand." Irvine amended quickly. "Emotionally. It's what you two were talking about. Just now. Robots that can feel."  
  
"So?" said Borton. "What's it got to do with –"  
  
"Look, I've got nothing against robots." Irvine sputtered frantically. "I know you work with the things. They're useful, god knows they're useful, and they make great helpers. But I think human beings are too willing to – to fall in love nowadays, especially with things that can't reciprocate. Their toys, their cars, their computers. But those things can't love you back. No matter how much emotion you project at a robot, it won't love you back" Irvine stressed, adamant. He sounded utterly exhausted.  
  
McCullough gave him a critical look.  
  
"You're worried about the kids falling in love with the robots?"  
  
"No. No – that isn't it." Irvine said. He rubbed his eyes, drained. "As a human being, you're biologically predisposed to find affection, to look for it in everything you interact with. And why not? It's the most intense social emotion, isn't it? You see these primitive standards – eye contact and facial recognition – and you wind up with this very human desire to see the robots as alive. You convince yourself that the robot voice grew up in a body, knows desire, understands the human heart. You fall for the ruse. And therein lies the problem."  
  
"Problem?" Borton repeated, unclear.  
  
"Receiving that sort of attention from a – from an _automaton_ could have adverse effects on a child." Irvine said, dry-washing his hands.  
  
"I'm confused. It's not real attention they'd be receiving. It's all an act, Henry." Borton tried.  
  
"That's the thing. I – I thought a lot about it last night, and frankly, I think it would be extremely unwise to, uh, well to trick a child into believing that their guide dinosaurs are really their friends." Irvine fumbled. "It could wind up – It could wind up causing damage."  
  
Borton listened as Irvine made a thorough argument.  
  
It was one thing to scare a kid. A little fear could help them grow up, but to place them into a situation with a sociable robot that could provoke enough emotion in them to cause them to form an attachment, and then force them to break that attachment when the day came where they had to leave the park –  
  
Who knew what that sort of thing could do to someone young.  
  
What would happen if a child became convinced that their guide was real, and not only that, but that their guide actually liked them back? And what would happen if that guide malfunctioned, if it stopped pretending to like the child? How would the child react? Would they become sullen, withdrawn? Would they get angry or violent as Irvine had previously proposed – all because their new friend no longer acted like it liked them?  
  
The ethics of exposing a child to a sociable robot whose technical limitations made it seem uninterested in them sparked a harsh question in Borton's mind. During the tour, Irvine had brought up the possibility of a child breaking a robot. But now the question he posed was different. Could a robot break a child?  
  
Just the other day she had pictured Thomas damaged, imagined him under attack and, in a word, broken – and she had felt instantly sorry for him, had even been momentarily overwhelmed with the urge to comfort him, despite knowing he wasn't hurt. Despite knowing that he couldn't ever get hurt. It had barely been two days and already she had formed a small attachment to him, even though she was adult enough to understand that he wasn't real.  
  
What Irvine posed was this:  
  
Was it necessarily a good idea to put a child into that kind of emotionally compromising position, particularly when they would have greater trouble distinguishing the real from the fake?  
  
"Let me get this strait." she heard McCullough begin. "You're saying that putting a kid into a cold, unfamiliar environment with a guide that displays fake emotion, who's friendly to them, a guide that helps them feel secure – that would be a _bad_ thing?"  
  
"Essentially, yes." answered Irvine.  
  
Staggered, McCullough thew his hands up in frustration.  
  
"Well what if that emotion were real?" Borton interjected curiously, and as an afterthought quickly added "Hypothetically speaking, of course. It wouldn't be a bad thing then, would it?"  
  
"No, it would be even worse." Irvine winged pathetically. She couldn't tell if he was panicked or simply too tired to keep it together. "That's what I was trying to tell you both. People already suspend their disbelief when they come to this place. So where does that suspension of disbelief end when you're dealing with a machine that, for all intents and purposes, is now alive? If the kid becomes attached to something that could get attached back, then the kid could loose grip on reality – maybe even get seriously addicted to Firdos. Anybody could."  
  
Irvine sucked in a breath and went on.  
  
"And then there are the robots themselves." he warned them, "Let's say the guide forms a connection with the kid they're supposed to watch. How does the guide react when it's time for the kid to leave? Does it get sad, does it get angry? Does it stop working, go on strike until it's allowed to see it's new friend again? The second you throw emotion into the mix, you get a robot that's unstable. Unpredictable. Dangerous."  
  
"Oh, for god sake, Henry." McCullough laughed, blatantly annoyed. "You need to lighten up. Mentally, I'm pretty much a kid myself and I don't have any problems with this place. I'm perfectly fine here. We all are. We would be even the robots _were_ –" he put his fingers up and made little air quotations "– alive."  
  
"But I –"  
  
"The robots are harmless, Henry. I'm telling you." persisted McCullough, " The kids are gonna preach about this place for years to come. You'll see."  
  
He stood up, and Borton did the same. Irvine just sat there looking drained. McCullough gave him a quick, but rough pat on the shoulder.  
  
"Get yourself some food, Henry. You'll feel better once you eat."  
  
With that, he turned and left the common room. Borton followed after him, and Thomas followed after her. The trio regrouped on the veranda, and McCullough leaned against the trailing, put out.  
  
"Can you believe him? The man's mental. Utterly paranoid."  
  
He took his glasses off again, fogged them with his breath, and rubbed them clean with the underside of his shirt.  
  
"This is why I take so many vacations, you know. Overworked means you get worked up. Not me, though. I keep it loose. I go with the flow."  
  
"I think he thought his concerns were legitimate, Errol. I doubt he meant to antagonize anybody." Borton tried to vindicate. "We've only been here a day. He's still getting used to it. We're all still getting used to it. Nobody has a clear idea yet about this place."  
  
Glasses back on, McCullough hopped onto the railing's edge and leaned over the side. Borton inhaled sharply, scared he would fall, but he indicated with a grin that his grip was tight.  
  
"Aye, but that's no reason to be a spoil sport, is it." he muttered peevishly.  
  
"There's one in every film. Watch. By the end, he won't want to leave." guaranteed Borton.  
  
"Aye, I know, I know." McCullough pouted. 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Following brunch, they and the others were made to assemble at the base of the hill below the hotel, where the trails began. There they discovered a trio of long-legged, bipedal dinosaurs with thin beaks and wide, rounded eyes. Quinn explained that they were ornithomimus.  
  
It was then revealed that the intended activity for that morning was to race the lanky creatures across the narrow valley, and that the winner was to receive a special prize. A bustle of commentary erupted from the group regarding who was to race, and Irvine hastily forfeit his right to participate.  
  
"I'd rather watch." he cited apprehensively.  
  
Before the others could object Thomas broke a small, thin branch piece off of one of the nearby trees and promptly handed it to Irvine.  
  
"You can start the race, if you like." he suggested in a bubbly tone-of-voice, and mimed the act of snapping the stick with his claws.  
  
The rest of the group members each climbed atop their waiting ornithomimus (save for Quinn, who opted to ride his guide gallimimus instead). Borton had expected a repeat of the day before, but the difficulties she and the others had experienced with the triceratops were absent now, as the ornithomimus sank to a seated position on the ground in order to allow the riders better access to the saddles.  
  
When her ornithomimus rose back into a standing position, Borton marveled at the differences between this new mount and the previous one. The ornithomimus was not so wide around as the triceratops had been, and was therefore a far more comfortable fit. Though, because it was so much smaller, she was almost worried she was too heavy for it. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally break one of these majestic machines.  
  
Carefully, she took up the reigns and lightly kicked her heels into it's sides. She felt the creature tense slightly and trot forward several steps. It was a strange bit of movement, like a robin hopping on both feet, and she would need to get used to it. She forced the ornithomimus forward, back, and forward again until she had done a complete circle. She repeated this test several times before she finally felt confident enough in her ability to steer it.  
  
"Are you safely on, Joanna?" she heard Thomas ask as he came toward her.  
  
Borton felt the ornithomimus stiffen and canter back. Twisting around in her seat she saw it's thick tail whip around to strike, and was amazed when Thomas, unfazed by the attack, dodged deftly out of the way and hurried back around to it's front, untouched. Startled, the ornithomimus tried to rear up, but Borton quickly tightened the reigns and held it firmly in place. She applied a constant pressure of her hips against it's flanks to keep it steady.  
  
"Are you safely on?" Thomas asked again, nonplussed.  
  
"Yeah. I'm good." she told him, wondering why the ornithomimus was acting so spooked.  
  
"I'll go off ahead, and wait on the other side of the finish line." Thomas announced, loudly enough for the others to here. Then, quieter, "Good luck, Joanna."  
  
Borton tipped the brim of her baseball cap at him, and then he was gone – disappearing down the track in a graceful sprint.  
  
The remaining guides stamped a starting line into the dirt with their feet and the riders took their places behind it.  
   
A beat of silence and then they heard the break of the branch against Irvine's knee, and in a flash the flock was off and moving. Before long the group became scattered on the track as each adopted a different speed. As he had before with the triceratops, Quinn took up the lead, and handled his new ride with shrewd mastery. Both Borton and McCullough were only a yard or two behind, and Abrams lagged, impassive, at the back – clearly unimpressed with the new pastime and perfectly prepared to loose the competition.   
  
The running dinosaurs squealed like frightened rabbits, their piercing calls echoing through the jungle brush. Borton stooped in the saddle and clung to the reigns as firmly as she could, stray strands of hair wiping at her face as the dinosaur beneath her pumped it's muscular legs into a flying stride. It was much faster than she would have imagined, and before she knew it, she was gaining on Quinn. Her ornithomimus kicked up dust in it's wake, and soon she lost sight of McCullough and Abrams altogether.    
  
Side by side with Quinn, she was going fast enough for her to feel the baseball cap start to lift off of her head. She didn't care if it blew away – she would find it again later. Caught up in the moment, all she cared about was winning.  
  
Up ahead the track became an obstacle course covered in bumpy terrain and deep puddles. Before she had a chance to react, the ornithomimus swung low and to the right, dodging in between a trio of slippery wet patches of grass. She held on as best she could as it swerved around them. Quinn's gallimimus did the same, and together they approached a large log that crossed the length of the track. Quinn was the first to reach it, his gallimimus landing with one scaly foot onto the top and launching on from there. Borton watched in slow motion as her ornithomimus leapt several feet into the air, bounding over it completely, only to land beside Quinn again.    
  
Neck and neck, they glided toward the finish line. Squinting, she could see Thomas standing there in wait. He seemed to brighten as she advanced.   
  
At the very last minute, just as he was about to cross the finish line, Quinn's gallimimus veered off to the right as thought it had been startled by something. Borton glanced at the oncoming ground and saw a wide gap – a ditch in the dirt at least a foot deep. It would require another jump to bridge the gap. With seconds remaining, Borton yanked back on the reins and felt her ornithomimus rear back and lift off of the ground, and the next thing Borton knew she was being declared the winner. She could hardly believe it.  
  
The prize she received was a medium-sized, plush ornithomimus doll with a Firdos price-tag still attached.  
  
"Why go to the gift shop when you can just win a race." Quinn cracked ungrudgingly.  
  
The group raced twice more after that, with Borton coming in third both times, unable to recreate the beginners luck that had helped her win the first race. By the end, every member of the group had been given a stuffed toy, including Irvine.  
  
Afterward, they were lead down a separate path to a gully, actually the mouth of a wide river that ran through the center of the realm. Resting against the bank, at crudely fashioned docks, were several flat-bottomed, Venetian rowing boats. The bobbed gently on the water, the clarity of which was crystalline. As Borton bent over the bank she saw her own face staring back up at her, distorted somewhat by the creatures swimming just beneath it. Closer inspection showed her that they were newt-like in appearance – small, scaly, amphibious – but were also the size of common catfish. Judging by their prehistoric appearance, she determined that they must have been mechanical too. McCullough sent a stone skipping across the surface, and the swimming dinosaurs quickly scattered into the seaweed. The stone sent ripples fanning out each time it met the water until it finally sank below into the riverbed.  
  
Right away Abrams' guide disappeared. When it returned, it brought with it an armful of bright orange life-preservers. These were presented to the guests, with each guide politely telling their respective ward to put one on.  
  
"Looks like we're going for a boat ride." Quinn remarked, struggling to tie the vest closed over himself. The life-preservers were clearly meant for children, and barely fit any of the others – save for McCullough, who was able to get his on by suck in his stomach.  
  
As Borton took her seat at the front of the first boat, Thomas positioned himself at the back facing the bow and, holding the long oar with both hands, pushed off with a single, hard forward stroke. This was immediately followed by a compensating backward stroke, and in no time at all the boat had moved away from the bank and was heading languidly down the river. Soon the other boats were behind them, paddling along like a line of swans.  
  
To an uninformed observer, the scene would have looked almost dreamlike in its absurdity. A quintet of dinosaurs, rowing gondolas down a tranquil river – each boat carrying a human passenger totally at ease with the bizarre scene they were a part of.  
  
If it hadn't been for the fact she had signed a non-disclosure agreement, Borton would have had one hell of a story to tell her interns when she got back.   
  
"Are you enjoying yourself, Joanna?" she heard Thomas ask.  
  
"Tom, buddy," she said with a carefree click of her tongue, "I'm having the time of my life."  
  
They continued at a leisurely pace down the river until they witnessed the breaching of several large plesiosaurs – creatures that shared an uncanny resemblance to the Loch Ness monster (something that was not lost on McCullough).  
  
"Good grief, Charlie Brown! Look at that! Nessy! Nessy, girl! Pretty thing, come here!" he whooped, leaning over the side of the boat and splashing at the water.  
  
Borton watched as the lengthy swimmers moved through the shimmering waves, sleek and agile like sea turtles. Thomas began to describe them for her.  
  
"Thalassomedon – meaning _sea lord_ –  has a neck comprised of sixty-two vertebrae, and it's skull is forty-seven centimeters long. Five foot wide marine appendages similar to those of a seal are used to help steer them through the water. They have been known to regularly sift through the silt so as to consume river stones, which are then used for ballast and digestion."  
  
Nimbly the dinosaurs swam under the boats, massive flippers stirring the current around them. The boats tossed and turned, and Borton stared after them as they vanished into the depths where the water was murkiest.  
  
It turned out that the river was in fact another trail – home to the aquatic dinosaurs of Firdos, and the boat ride was the second part of the official tour. Squinting, Borton could just make out the trail markers nailed to the trees lining the riverbank. They were blue, and sported the image of a dinosaur she couldn't quite make out.  
  
Unlike the land trails, however, the river was not as densely populated with dinosaurs. They saw hardly any others after the first sighting. Borton could understand why. She herself had been grappling with the difficulties of perfecting a working pelagic robot for the past year, and she knew that building one was in no way easy. She also knew that undertaking such tasks as waterproofing the hull and sealing the processors were also considerably time consuming. While she was certain Firdos' methods were far superior to her own, it was impossible to think that there hadn't been at least one setback, and so it made sense that there were fewer swimming dinosaurs in the Prehistoric-realm.  
  
She sat back in the boat, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on her face. The tour stretched on, and soon they were taken to a lagoon. By then the sun had started to dip lower in the sky, and Borton knew that dusk was approaching.  
  
A wall of willow trees hid the mouth of a cave, and tiny, electric fireflies danced under the drooping bows. Passing into the cave, the boats came to a stop at a stone slab that sloped down into the water. The group members disembarked and were delighted to find a lovely in-ground pool built into the rock, positioned just below a miniaturized, tropical waterfall. But, as nobody had expected there to be an opportunity to swim in the Prehistoric-realm, nobody had brought along their bathing suits.  
  
Nevertheless, Borton saw it as an opportunity that shouldn't be wasted, and sat herself down at the poolside. With shoes removed, she dunked her toes into the water. Thinking it over, she realized that she hadn't seen a pool in years – let alone been near enough to one to get wet. And she lived in Hollywood, where pools were plentiful. The experience was long overdue.  
  
While she lingered by the pool, the men began exploring the cave, with Abrams taking special care to write a quick description of it in his notebook.  
  
The cave had been built during the early stages of the realm's construction, planned as part of the park from the very start. Borton could tell that pieces of it were in no way naturally occurring. Large, glowing stalactites hung down from the ceiling, illuminating the cave in a mesmerizing array of blues and greens, and the floor was strangely heated. The fall of water echoed off the walls in a drowning rush.    
  
Her attention was held captive by it until she suddenly felt Thomas' nose press against the space between her shoulder-blades. She jerked around to see him on his belly directly behind her, tail wagging.  
  
With false reproach she said “Tom, don't sneak up on me like that, man. I almost fell in." A pang of guilt at his apologetic face – “Ah, here. Forget about it. Not your fault I can’t hear you coming.”  
  
He lifted himself partially off the floor.  
  
“Would you like to go swimming, Joanna?”  
  
She grabbed her sleeve and tugged at it. “No thanks. Don't quite feel like taking this off right now.” she explained, and briefly glanced around at the others, hoping he would understand her point.  
  
Instead, Thomas said nothing and looked away guiltily. She wondered why.  
  
"Umm – can you swim?" she inquired, tone light. "Are you a swimmer?"  
   
"Velociraptors do not ordinarily swim." he replied, and quickly switched back into lecture-mode. “Velociraptors are desert-dwellers by nature. Most fossils sites that have yielded velociraptor remains preserve an arid environment with fields of sand dunes and intermittent streams. The posture of many complete fossils show within structured sandstone deposits, and suggest a number of specimens were buried alive during common sandstorm events.”  
  
The facts he listed were impressive, and they intrigued her – to an extent. But at that exact moment Borton found herself bored by the tour-guide routine. It was like Thomas was putting on an act, just going through the motions with her, and because of this morning she now had other things on her mind.  
  
It was the first time Borton had been around robots of this caliber, and she wanted to learn as much about them as she could, while she still had the time. It was half the reason she had agreed to come to the resort in the first place, and she was growing tired of only seeing the one aspect of their functionality.  
  
From the tour and subsequent interactions she’d had with them she had gathered that they were smart, strong, fast, and built to be both useful and friendly. All attributes worthy of admiration.  
  
What intrigued her now was whether or not the robots of Firdos were possessing of a personality, too.  
  
Of course, there was no way that the tour guides actually felt anything. It had already been established that they were too primitive in their design for real emotion, and as McCullough had said, feeling robots were decades away at the least. Even still, had the engineers been meticulous enough to instill the tour guide robots with an artificial personality to go along with their mimicked emotions?  
  
From the behavior Thomas had displayed so far, she was starting to think that they had. She could tell that there was more to him than he was letting on, and the conversation about artificial intelligence she had shared with McCullough over breakfast had greatly peaked her interest in regard to his mental make-up.  
  
For Borton, the flower-crown had proved just how unique of a device Thomas really was, and while it gave her good insight as to the mechanics of his body, it only hinted at the potential persona beneath. Thanks to McCullough, she now wondered what kind of mind the engineers had created to go along with such a skilled pair of hands.  
  
Determined, she turned to him and in a strait-forward fashion asked "Hey, Tom? What do you like to do?"  
  
Thomas responded with a slight tilt of his head.  
  
“You know. You do things, right? And I don’t mean clean the kitchen, or walk around the trails. Those are jobs.” she specified. “Not hobbies. What do you like to do?”  
  
For a moment he seemed to consider the question, giving her the impression that she had somehow stunned him with it – but then his eyes dulled, and his smile went blissfully vacant again.  
  
“Velociraptors are expert hunters.” he replied happily.  
  
She had expected his answer to allude to his flower-picking. Sliding closer to him by the poolside, she said “So you like to hunt?”  
  
In his guide-voice; “Velociraptors often hunted in packs and are known to have –“  
  
She stopped him. “No, Tom. No. Not velociraptors. You. Do you like to hunt?”  
  
He gave her a conflicted look and all at once she saw a variety of synthetic emotions ruffle over his face, ranging from struggling confusion to excited delight.  
  
After a moment his voice turned earnest. “Not particularly, no.”  
  
She grinned.  
  
 _Now you’re getting somewhere._  
  
“And how come you don’t like hunting, Tom?” she asked, tone respectful. While she tried her best to hide it, she was sure he could tell how eager she was to hear his response.  
  
“I find it cruel.” he stated bluntly after a short pause. “I don’t enjoy seeing other organisms get hurt, and I don’t enjoy hurting other organisms.”  
  
 _That’ll be the security protocols, most likely_ , reasoned Borton. _Still, it’s a step in the right direction._  
  
“You mean you don’t like hunting for sport.” she clarified. “What about for food?”  
  
“I do not require food.” he reminded her. “And if I did, I would secure sustenance through other means.”  
  
Borton leaned back on her wrists, legs dangling down so that the tips of her toes touched the cool water below. “Well how do you like that. A vegan dinosaur. Quinn would get a kick out of you, that’s for sure.”  
  
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell him.” said Thomas woefully, catching Borton off guard. “While I desire to please and remain useful to you, as a part of the Prehistoric-realm, I am required to maintain a specific image of predatory viciousness. Historically, velociraptors were skilled pack hunters, and killed live prey in order to survive.”  
  
Borton stared at him. Apparently, he had been programmed to be very honest when it was requested of him, and very direct in the delivery of that honesty. She didn’t know what to make of it. And there was something else as well. It had to do with the way he kept referring to the velociraptors separately from himself – and how he seemed to be conscious of the role he was meant to play in the park. Almost as if it was intentional.  
  
She remembered searching for the Firdos brand on Evelyn Domer's wrist when they had first been introduced –  
  
 _Do the robots of Firdos know that they're robots?_  
  
– and her thoughts from the other day abruptly resurfaced.  
  
 _Is he programmed to deny his robotic heritage? Or does he think of himself as a real, living breathing organism?_  
  
She blinked. The way he spoke about himself could indeed have been an indication that he knew he wasn't a real dinosaur. But did that necessarily verify that he was self-aware? If so, it would provide a reasonable explanation for the way he acted.    
  
Hesitant to ask outright (the last thing she wanted to do was cause a paradoxical glitch in his programming), she stored the question away for later on, leaving her time to collect more data.  
  
“You don’t like hunting.” she eventually confirmed, “That’s fine. It’ll be our secret. But you still haven’t told me what you _do_ like to do.”  
  
She waited several seconds for him to compile an answer.  
  
Finally – “I’m very fond of literature.”  
  
She had to hold back a giggle at that, finding the idea of a carnivorous dinosaur that refused to hunt and liked literature overwhelmingly funny. She pictured him sitting by a fireplace, a pipe in one hand and an article on philosophy in the other, and it was almost too much to handle. But at the same time, she found it unexpectedly gentle of him, and very endearing. Almost cute. She couldn’t help but smile.  
  
“That’s great, Tom. What sort of literature do you like, exactly?”  
  
She didn’t bother to ask him where the 'literature' he read came from. Logic told her that he likely held a private library in his head. A veritable warehouse full of electronic tomes and digital books connected through the Firdos wireless network. Unbeknownst to her, this assumption was fairly on the mark.  
  
Thomas again seemed to swell at the question.  
  
“Shakespeare.” he told her smugly.  
  
She did laugh, then, but it wasn’t out of malice. She had wanted him to have an artistic mind, and low and behold, he did. At least the engineers hadn’t stocked Thomas full of Asimov and Phillip K. Dick. Or she hoped they hadn’t.  
  
“Oh really? Go on, then, let’s hear some. Recite a poem for me. Or, no. A sonnet. That’s what they’re called, right? Let’s have a Shakespearean sonnet.”  
  
Thomas straitened and shivered, spreading his arms out and flapping them twice in a row. He adopted the stance of a crowing rooster, and began in a tender, subdued voice;  
  
“ _Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom._ ”  
  
His wide, green eyes illuminated brightly, reflecting specs of purple and pink from the cave lights suspended overhead. When he had finished, Borton became aware that her mouth was hanging open, and swiftly snapped it shut. Slowly, she put her hands up and started to clap.  
  
“A-plus. One hundred percent. You pass the class, mister.” she proclaimed, thoroughly dazzled.  
  
His chest puffed proudly.  
  
“ _Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_ ” he went on. “ _Thou art more lovely and more –_ ”  
  
A pinched look from Borton and his verse died in his throat.

She splashed her feet in the pool water and said “Okay, all right. Hot-shot. Let’s not turn into a show-off, here. You’re going to kill my self esteem.” she cautioned him with a sly smirk.  
  
“Have you read much Shakespeare?” he asked her.  
  
Borton shrugged regretfully. “Afraid not. But I do know one poem off the top of my head. Want to hear it?”  
  
Thomas nodded, and she cleared her throat – “I had a cat named Snowball. He died, he died. Mom said he was sleeping. She lied, she lied.” She threw up her hands in a painful plea. “Why oh why is my cat dead? Couldn’t that Chrysler have hit me instead?”  
  
She let her hands drop back to her lap with a sigh. “Not quiet as good as old Billy S, is it.”  
  
“I thought it was lovely. Who wrote it?”  
  
“Lisa Simpson.”  
  
Thomas seemed to search himself. “I don’t believe I know that poet.”  
  
“She’s not a poet, buddy. She’s a cartoon character.” said Borton, stretching forward to crack her neck. “Yeah, to be fair I’m kind of better at telling jokes.”  
  
“What do you call a blind dinosaur?” Thomas recounted jovially. When she failed to give him an answer, he replied “Do-you-think-he-sawrus.”  
  
She flashed him a carefree grin, pulling her feet back out of the water. Thomas kept going.  
  
“What do you call a blind dinosaur’s dog? Do-you-think-he-sawrus-rex.”  
  
“Tom,” mumbled Borton, “You just might be a dork-a-saurus-rex.”  
  
With that, she took hold of his head in both hands, and began scratching his snout like she would with a dog. He drew away, suddenly bashful.  
  
It wasn't long before the tour group left the cave. On the way back out to the boats Borton caught back up with McCullough, and Thomas fell in line beside her, a quirky hop-and-skip to his gate.  
  
"Getting to know your guide, I see." remarked McCullough.  
  
"I am."  
  
"Should have called me over. We could have tried a question or two from the Turing test." he mused. "Find out anything interesting?"  
  
"Yeah." replied Borton. "Hamlet would be a lot more interesting with an all-dinosaur cast."  
  
After that, they returned to the boats and set off for the hotel. By the day's end Borton found herself back in the common room, finishing a dinner that Thomas had cooked from scratch using the tiny kitchenette.   
  
At twilight the sun had slipped under the horizon, casting an golden-orange tint across the sky. Tiny, holographic stars twinkled on the ceiling of the domed enclosure, and Borton felt very mellow. The rest of the guests were all squeezed in to one of the small, rounded tables by the back window, but she didn't care. She was full, comfortable, even a touch sleepy. If work and the whale were a hurricane, she was safe in the eye of the storm.  
  
The guides sat a little ways away from the table in a huddle, watching their wards contently. Borton swung her gaze in their direction and saw Thomas twitch as her eyes met his. She didn't linger long with looking at him – attention pulled elsewhere when McCullough rose abruptly and went to his room with a secretive wink, claiming that he needed to retrieve something from his luggage. When he got back, he was carrying two bottles of champagne.  
  
"For god sake, Errol." gasped Irvine, disapproval clear in his voice. "Did you really feel it necessary to sneak those in?"  
  
McCullough grinned.  
  
"I had an inkling that they might try to deny us, friend. If we were kids I'd say they were well within their rights. But we aren't kids. We're the first people in the Prehistoric-realm, and I think that kind of accomplishment calls for a celebration. A real celebration." he clarified.  
  
There was a lout popping sound as a cork shot across the room and struck the wall, rebounded and nearly hitting Abrams in the ear. McCullough laughed, holding the dripping bottle away from himself as the foam splashed onto the rug just in front of his feet.  
  
Quinn stood, licked his lips and said "I'll get the glasses."  
  
He hurriedly made his way over to the cabinets and brought back five, short, plastic cups – each one with a different picture of a dinosaur on the side. He placed them in front of each table-member and quickly took his seat again, fidgety. McCullough went around the table, pouring the champagne into the cups one by one. His mannerisms reminded Borton of a typical restaurant waiter.  
  
Irvine watched the champagne fizz and sparkle in his cup. "I hope they don't kick us out for this." he murmured glumly.  
  
"Oh, please. If anything, it might help influence how well we rate the place." joked Quinn, gesturing for McCullough to fill his cup to the brim.  
  
When everybody had a drink McCullough set the bottles aside and raised his cup above his head.  
  
"To the first explorers of the Prehistoric-realm. May our vacation continue to kick ass." he decreed comically, and took a quick swill of champagne.  
  
The others followed suit, happily drinking to the toast, and the evening dissolved into the cheerful, relaxed chatter of the pleasantly buzzed. Soon the first bottle was empty, and the second one was opened and halfway drained. Borton had moved to the couch by then, with Thomas at her feet. McCullough sat next to her. With the exception of the velociraptor, it was much like their first meeting on the hovercraft, with him firing a string of questions at her, pausing only to gush about her special effects work, and Borton doing her best to receive it all as amiably as she could manage – despite her self-consciousness.  
  
At one point, McCullough pointed at her baseball cap and said "How come you wear that?"  
  
"This?" she asked, and removed the cap from her head so that she could hand it over to him. It was scuffed and washed-out, and the team logo was too faded to properly identify. "I've always had it."  
  
"Mmm." said McCullough, running his fingers over the stitching. Giving it back to her, he said "And how did you come by it?"  
  
"Oh, it's a funny story, actually." Borton said drowsily. "My dad took me to a baseball game one time. Can't remember the name of the stadium, or who was playing. I was pretty young. Five, maybe?"  
  
She waved the hat and lowered it to her knee, representing how tall she had been at the time.  
  
"Anyway, we get there and I start to get upset. Because everyone has a hat accept me. The guy sitting next to us has a hat, the people in front of us have hats, all the kids have hats. My dad's got his hat. So, of course, I start crying. Dad, I want a hat." she blubbered theatrically, eliciting a brief flash of concern from Thomas. "Jeez, I was a brat back then. And my poor dad, he's trying to calm me down. It's fine, it's okay, everything's okay, we'll get you a hat."  
  
She stopped the narrative to look around. Quinn was now standing over her shoulder, and both Abrams and Irvine – still back at the table – were listening intently.  
  
"Anyway . . . " she continued after a moment, "We go down to the souvenir shop by the entrance, right? And sure enough, they're sold out of kiddie hats. Well now I start crying even louder than before. And my dad – you know what he does? He up and buys a brand new hat, and gives me his old one. It was way too big for me, at the time, but I stopped crying when he put it over my head. It made me really happy when he did that. Like I had the best hat in the place. I wore it the rest of the day. Hell, I even fell asleep in it."  
  
She laughed.  
  
"I remember – I remember I used to tease him about it when I got older. Oh, sure, I see what you did. Feel good about yourself? Taking advantage of the crying kid so you could buy yourself a new hat."  
  
"Your dad sounds like he was a nice guy." Quinn said. "I mean, for somebody famous."  
  
Borton nodded, her laughter fading away.  
  
"Oh, yeah. My dad – he never let success change him, you know? Was always real down to earth about everything. Easy going. He never used to get angry when stuff went wrong. Could be worse. That was his motto. Could be worse."  
  
She paused, her smile curling into a tight-lipped grimace as a flood of emotion threatened to drown her.   
  
Thomas nudged her leg – "Joanna?"  
  
His soft voice jolted her out of her thoughts, and she suddenly realized that she was still in the common room, still in Firdos, and that the men were all staring at her, waiting for her to say something. She inhaled and forced another smile – wider than before.  
  
"So!" she exclaimed energetically. "That's how I got this old thing." she finished, tossing the hat down to Thomas to keep a hold of. He tucked it under his arm, saying nothing.  
  
Suddenly Abrams was hovering over her, holding the bottle of wine. His expression was indifferent, almost cold, but there was something else behind it. Something hidden. Borton looked and swore she could see sympathy in his eyes. Silently, he filled her cup, and she stared at him for several wordless seconds before downing the contents in three, long gulps. He filled her cup again and, leaving the bottle with Quinn (it was nearly empty now), returned to his chair at the table.  
  
Just then McCullough spoke back up. She wasn't entirely paying attention to him, but whatever he said caused the others to laugh. She would have to thank him later for helping to break the tension. The conversation continued, this time with Quinn talking about the various students he'd had over the years.  
  
Borton made up her mind not to have any more alcohol. Her brain was already an unbalanced flurry of random memories thanks to what what had been consumed so far. And she refused to let the unhappy thoughts get the better of her. She was on vacation, and Firdos was not the place to start blubbering.  
  
When the noise finally died down again Abrams took a spoon to his plate, producing a series of fine clinks.  
  
"Bed time, I think." was all he said, and soon after that the party dispersed.

 

* * *

 

  
  
It had been years since Borton had been tipsy, and in her semi-inebriated state she could barely walk without tripping. It required Thomas' gentle assistance to help her get up the stairs and find her way back to her room. Once inside, she tottered over to the couch and leaned against it to keep from swaying. Clumsily, she made her way around to the front of it and fell into a sitting position, her limbs now heavy and weak.

"Welp. We're back on the couch again."

Thomas nodded, settling in next to her.  
  
"You know what? I like this place." she decided offhandedly. "I've only been here – a day? Two days? Not even?"  
  
She waved her hand in her face like she was swatting invisible bugs.  
  
"Who cares. I like it here anyway. It's so relaxing." she cooed, slumping down into the cushions so that her chin was resting against her chest, and her legs extended under the coffee table. "You know the last time I got to relax was – was – oh hell. I can't remember."  
  
She yawned, warm and fluttery. Her body was a balloon floating off to mingle with the clouds. She didn't mind.  
  
"I never get breaks. Never." she told him, shaking her head until she was dizzy. "I bend over backwards and I try to keep track of it all. I really try. I've got the whole thing on my shoulders, and here I am, just holding it all up but it never gets me anything. I've been going forever and I never get a break, because nobody's there anymore to back me up."  
  
"I'm here, Joanna." Thomas warbled happily.  
  
"I know. I know, but you're not there. Nobody's there."  
  
Thomas wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about, but even still, he endeavored to be as helpful as he could. He inched forward on the couch and pressed his muzzle into her elbow. Lazily, she pulled away.  
  
"I'm sorry." was all he said.  
  
"Pffft." she snorted, giggling. "It's not your fault."  
  
She shut her eyes, opened them.  
  
Sarcastically – "Or is it? A conspiracy! The robots are all against me, and you're their ring-leader. You shall have to be dealt with."  
  
She poked his noise with her finger; "There. I've cursed you. Now you will evolve into a toaster oven."  
  
And she cackled madly for several minutes. Thomas only stared at her, an expression of confusion on his face.  
  
"I used to have time." she remarked abruptly. "You know? Time to myself, to do things. Go to the movies, go out for lunch. Go on dates. And – And I used to go to the batting cages, too."  
  
And she mimed her baseball stance, as best she could in her current, seated position, and pretended to clock an invisible baseball over a nonexistent fence. Thomas followed the arc of the nonexistent ball like an attentive cat. He was still holding her baseball cap, and when he tried to hand it back to her, she pushed it away.  
  
"I got to be an ace. Doesn't matter now. Too much to do, and nooooo breaks." she sang thickly.  
  
A beat, and somewhere a clock was ticking. Or was it Thomas? She looked at him, squinting hard, thinking that – if only she had X-ray vision, like Superman – she could perhaps watch the spinning cogs turn beneath his skin.  
  
"Do you know what I do, Tom? For a living?" she slurred inquisitively.  
  
"What do you do, Joanna?" he asked her, sounding genuinely interested.  
  
Technically speaking, he already knew what type of employment she had. He even understood it, to a degree. He was privy to every bit of information Firdos had on her, including whatever was on the detailed questionnaires she had filled out before entering the Prehistoric-realm. Apart from the small background summary Firdos had on file, he knew her guesstimated height and weight, her eye and hair color, her exact age, her home address, her allergies and medical needs, as well as the physical ailments that had affected her past relatives. He even knew the telephone numbers of her emergency contacts, though this was part of his safety features. And if she had put a check-mark in the box labeled 'married' instead of 'single', then he would have known that too.   
  
While he feigned ignorance, he was well aware of what she did for a living. All the same, he wanted to hear her talk about herself.  
  
"I make . . . I make things." she explained, choosing her words carefully. "I make special things. Like you. You're special. You're so freaking special, Tom. Christ, I wish I could make 'em like you." she blurted passionately.  
  
Thomas made no sign that he understood, but she kept going nevertheless.  
  
"And I don't get a reward, you know. Other people get oscars when they work as hard as me, but I don't. No, sir. Directors, and actors, and my dad. They all get rewarded, they all get breaks. But I don't. Do you know what an oscar is, Tom?"  
  
"I'm afraid I don't, Joanna."  
  
"They're full of chocolate, you know." she whispered, and put her finger to her lips. "Shhhhh."  
  
Thomas scooted a little closer to her on the cushions. She tried to straiten her posture in order to move away, but, failing that, gave up the effort and allowed the space between them to close.  
  
"I'm being stupid. I shouldn't need a reward. The work should be the reward." she admitted, dismissively. "I mean, not a ton of people get the chance to – to do what I do, Tom. Put things like you together. You're so damn special, Tom." and she reached out to stroke his head lovingly.  
  
 _Big old toys._  
  
"Thank you, Joanna." he said with a purr. "I find you very special, as well."  
  
"I'll bet you do. God, I could make something like you, if I had the time. I bet I could. I used to make things. Now there's only the whale." she grumbled bitterly.  
  
"The whale?" he repeated, but Borton ignored him.  
  
"I used to make things. I did it because I liked it. It used to be fun, Tom. Me and dad, in the workshop, getting ready for a shoot. Now it's nothing but a job. You think I like ti now? Sacrificing my creative vision I guess? I dunno. I just want a break." she muttered sleepily.  
  
"You're on a break, Joanna." said Thomas, tone tranquil.  
  
"Hey. You're right. How about that." she bragged dumbly. "This place. It's my break, isn't it. My oscar. What I do, for a living. I'm good at it. I must be, right? Why else would they – would they ask me to come here?"  
  
Suddenly she became very somber.  
  
"Jesus, I do my best. I just want somebody to tell me that I'm doing a good job." she squeaked, voice quavering. She thought about McCullough, about Quinn, and how their flattering remarks, although said to her face, had really been meant for her father.  
  
She balled her hands into angry fists. It didn't help.  
  
"I just want somebody to tell me that I'm okay. That it was a mess before it all got thrown at me. Man, I couldn't be expected to build a perfect structure on such a shaky foundation. Not without dad around. I can't do anything without dad."  
  
"You're very good at your job, Joanna." Thomas told her, and for a fleeting second she almost believed him. She badly wanted to, but then she remembered that he was probably programmed to say things like that. That she had asked him to say that exact thing not more than two seconds ago, and that he was clearly designed to please – so why buy into it? Why accept that he was actually paying her a legitimate compliment?  
  
Irvine's words from breakfast – _As a human being, you're biologically predisposed to find affection . . . You fall for the ruse. And therein lies the problem._  
  
The thought depressed her even more. She felt like crying.  
  
"Aw shit." she mumbled guiltily, struggling to pull herself together. "Sorry. I'll shut up now. Nobody likes a negative-Nancy, do they."  
  
Thomas rested his head against her shoulder, nuzzling her neck. She didn't entirely mind the sensation.  
  
"I like you." he replied quietly.  
  
She smiled, teary-eyed.  
  
"Yeah, I know you do." she sighed. The words _you're supposed to_ rang through her head, and with that a rush of indignant anger shot through her.  
  
Why the hell did it have to matter?  
  
So what if he was a machine? So what if she was spilling her guts to an object that had no feelings of it's own? She felt better for it, didn't she? She hadn't talked with anybody like this for over a year. Correction. She hadn't talked with any person like this for over a year, because whenever she tried the listeners got snippy. They got judgmental. They became bored, and most of the time they wouldn't even do her the courtesy of _pretending_ to care. And if they _did_ pretend to care, it was only because she was moderately famous – not because she was a human being with the right to be depressed every once in a while.  
  
At least Thomas' sympathy was genuine (in a way). That was, she was fairly positive that he was required to think the best of her at all times, despite whatever inner flaws she revealed to him. She looked at him then with probing eyes, hunting for some sign that he disliked her, even though he had stated otherwise only seconds before.  
  
She could perceive none.  
  
No, Thomas didn't think she was weak or annoying for having shared what was on her mind. He didn't see her as some frail thing he had to coddle and care for, as someone who he would grow to resent the more she showed him her fears and insecurities. And he certainly didn't pity her, either. He was incapable of it. How lucky she was, to be sitting there on the couch with something that saw her and didn't automatically assume she was poorer off for being the un-talented daughter of the late Chris Borton. With a machine, she didn't have to worry about a reaction. She could vent without fear of backlash or consequence.    
  
And how in God's name could that possibly be a bad thing?     
  
"I like you, too, buddy." she finally said. "Thanks for listening."  
  
"Of course." said Thomas.  
  
Sloppily, Borton wiped her sleeve across her nose and sniffed harshly until she could breath again.  
  
"Christ, look at me. I'm sitting here, on vacation, wallowing away in self pity. That's not healthy, is it? But on the bright side, Irvine's wrong. I think you'd help a kid if they were upset, not make 'em worse. Case in point." she said, and took her baseball cap back from him.  
  
After that she forced herself to stand, but her footing was wobbly, and before she could fall back into the couch Thomas was at her side, allowing her to lean on him – holding her upright so that she could keep her balance.   
  
"I think perhaps you should go to bed, Joanna." recommended Thomas.  
  
"Just had a therapeutic breakthrough with a dinosaur. Yeah, it's bedtime all right." she affirmed, tilting into him. "Sleep makes everything better."  
  
Not bothering to change out of her clothes, she flopped face-first onto the mattress. She felt deliciously giddy, knowing that she was at Firdos, that she had been given a beautiful suite with a beautiful bed to sleep in, and Thomas – he was so helpful. She loved that.  
  
She had already started to doze off, not even under the covers yet, when he suddenly broke the silence.  
  
"You aren't alone here."  
  
The comment shocked her out of her stupor.  
  
"No, buddy. No, you're here. I can see you and everything." she assured him, wondering vaguely if he had malfunctioned.  
  
Thomas gazed down at her, eyes sparkling. "You're extraordinarily talented, Joanna, and I would love to see the things you make. Someday."  
  
Borton's eyes widened with realization.  
  
"Oh, Tom. Yeah. I'd love you show you and all that, but I don't think you're allowed out of here. That is – I mean, I don't think you can come back with me, you know? Where I live, well, it's pretty different." she told him, and after thinking on it, added "That is, there aren't any dinosaurs where I live. You wouldn't be happy."  
  
"If you were there, I would be happy." he promised.  
  
Again, his words left her feeling jarred. The conversation was becoming too surreal for her to handle, and she couldn't tell if it was because she was drunk, or if it was because he sounded serious.  
  
Quickly, she attempted a compromise.  
  
"Tell you what. Why don't we talk about this some other time, huh? I should go to bed now, remember?" She said, staring back up at him.  
  
He was looking down at her with clouded eyes, and she curled her legs up to her chest, weary. The day had been another long one, and now she wanted it to end. A moment later and he was on the bed with her, and just as she went to protest he wrapped his lanky, clawed arms around her in a surprisingly soft hug. She had expected him to feel cold, but he didn't. Rather, he radiated a kind of inviting warmth, and his skin was dry and smooth. She'd held a snake once, on a film shoot long ago. A live python, and at first she had been repulsed by the thought of touching it, but her father had persuaded her to give it a go and when she had it had done nothing more than curl pleasantly around her arm and fall asleep there. With Thomas' arms locked around her now she was surprised to remember the python, and for a split second she again found herself conveniently forgetting that Thomas was not entirely alive.  
  
After a second or two of laying stiffly, she relaxed into the embrace. He held her for a good four or five minutes before he finally pulled away, and afterward she was very mindful of how long the hug had actually lasted.  
  
Thomas spread the nearest blanket over her and climbed back off of the bed. Feeling lightheaded, and slightly embarrassed by his doting, Borton bundled herself under the blanket, hiding.  
  
"Night, Tom." she murmured at him, her eyes already closing.  
  
His voice glided to her just before she slipped down into the darkness – "Sleep well, Joanna . . ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of the dinosaurs featured in this chapter:
> 
> \- thalassomedon (a type of plesiosaurs)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An incident occurs during an arranged scavenger hunt, and Joanna begins to question if all is right in the Prehistoric-realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the outrageous delay – this chapter took a while to get out, but it's got a lot more character development as far as Thomas goes. I wound up giving him a mix of traits inspired by robotic characters with emotion, such as David 8 from Prometheus, and Data from Star Trek. In fact, Data is almost directly referenced when Thomas cites a specific interest in music. 
> 
> This chapter also starts to get back to it's Westworld and Jurassic Park routes. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy. Comments and criticisms are welcome and appreciated!

_. . . Monday: One day before total systems failure . . ._

  
  
Borton awoke the next morning with bleary eyes and a dry mouth. She practically fell out of bed in a desperate frenzy to make it to the toilet. Later, she would liken her actions to those of McCullough when he had been airsick on the hovercraft.  
  
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, stomach emptied, she found Thomas standing at the threshold, alert.  
  
"Are you ill, Joanna?" he asked her.  
  
"Drank to much." she gurgled, and put her hand to her mouth to silence a burp.  
  
Thomas quirked his head, and she watched his expression change. Staring dumbly past scraggly strands of her own unkempt hair, she could see the emulated-displeasure appear on his face.  
  
_Oh well_ , she shrugged. _At least I didn't make too big an ass of myself._  
  
Or she hoped she hadn't, at any rate.  
  
Thinking back on it, she discovered that she couldn't entirely remember the events of the previous night. A few small memories remained intact, but the rest were just a hazy, discombobulated blur. She stood in front of Thomas, struggling to piece it all together. She could recall McCullough bringing the bottles into the common room, and she could recall those first few bubbly sips of champagne, and something or other about her baseball cap, taking it off and –  
  
She touched at her scalp, vacantly searching for the phantom cap she could have sworn she was still wearing.  
  
"Hey, where's my – " but before she could finish Thomas was pointing to the dresser top.  
  
Turning to look, she saw the cap sitting there unharmed, and relief washed over her. She hung against the door-frame, limp and pale. Thankfully, Thomas had not yet opened the curtains, and likely wouldn't until he was given permission (despite his obvious disappointment with her), but as it stood her sensitive eyes could already detect the light peeking in through the cracks between the cloth and the wall. She squinted, feeling utterly abysmal, and with Thomas' help made her way back to the bed.  
  
"I'm on vacation." she told him weakly, and collapsed onto the mattress.  
  
Thomas tilted his head and leered at her. She said nothing, too woozy to care, and gradually, she saw his stern gaze soften into one of pure concern.  
  
"Can't stay mad at me, can you." she teased.   
  
"Please wait here." he said.  
  
She watched him plod out of view, and a moment later she heard the sound of the automatic-chef coughing out something thick and watery. A milkshake, possibly, or so she guessed. Rolling onto her side, she bunched up the covers with her knees as her abdomen rumbled angrily. Just then Thomas returned, a tall glass of green liquid balanced in his grasping, clawed fingers. He handed it out to her, expectant. When she failed to take it, he put one palm over the open top of the glass and hopped onto the bed. The mattress wiggled under his weight, and Borton rolled away until she hit the headboard.  
  
"Don't jump on the bed, Tom." she chided.  
  
He bent over her, stubbornly pushing the drink toward her face. Reluctantly, she took it and brought it to her nose. It smelled misleadingly sweet. She didn't trust it.  
  
"What's in this?"  
  
"It will help you feel better." was all he said. "I'm sorry you are ill."  
  
He trailed off, and she stared up at him, waiting. The glass was heavy in her hand, and beads of condensation made the surface slippery.  
  
"Please try to avoid making yourself sick in the future." he requested with downcast eyes. "I don't like to see you make yourself sick."  
  
Borton slumped into the pillows behind her, impressed by the parental tactics Thomas was displaying. Currently, he was showcasing what Borton liked to call the guilt-trip deterrent, something her father had often used to get her attention whenever she would act up. She recognized it strait away. The sad wag of his head, the misplaced annoyance – all of Thomas' mannerisms fit the profile, and overall his performance was very convincing. No doubt a real child would have fallen for it without a second thought, and learned their lesson appropriately.  
  
"Yeah," she croaked sickly. "Not too attractive like this, am I, Tommy-boy."  
  
He shook his head in disagreement. "You're very be–"  
  
"I know, I know."  
  
She pressed her eyes closed and frowned. Her head was killing her.  
  
"So this'll help settle my stomach, right?" she eventually asked, showing him the glass.  
  
He nodded, and she inhaled, suspicious. There was nothing in his expression to suggest that he was being dishonest with her, and he had treated her fairly so far. Frowning, she raised it to her lips and swallowed down half a mouth full – as much as she could manage at the time. It took a significant amount of concentration to keep it from coming back up, but the effects were almost instantaneous, and soon her headache was reduced to a dull throbbing.  
  
She threw an arm over her eyes and sighed happily.  
  
"Aw Tom," she said as the last of the fuzziness left her. "I could kiss you, man. Thanks."  
  
Thomas made no reply and when Borton had finished the rest of the drink he gingerly removed the glass from her hands and set it in the kitchen. It was another fifteen minutes or so before Borton finally got out of bed.  
   
After her morning shower she made the decision to eat breakfast in her room, even though Thomas assured her that the buffet was again available.  
  
"Thanks but I'd rather talk with you for a little while, if that's okay." she said, laughing as she toweled her hair. She neglected to mention the fact that she was craving a break away from the other guests.  
  
Borton had nothing against McCullough or Quinn, or any of the others really. But she wasn't used to so much social contact. For Borton, human interaction was fleeting, and usually spaced apart by days or even weeks. When she was in the workshop, her interactions were reduced to the few interns she kept around, along with one or two visits from directors and producers. And while it was true that she met with a larger number of people whenever she was on set, her focus was usually on the robots that were being filmed, rather than their flesh-and-blood co-starts.  
  
During the past few days, Borton had gotten more face-time with live people than she had in ages, and while she was happy about it, she also felt she needed a moment to recuperate before the next round of socializing began.  
  
Once Thomas had completed his round of daily chores, Borton took the opportunity to further quiz him on the various aspects of his artificial personality. She felt she'd made good progress during their little pool-side excursion, and it seemed like the perfect time to continue the conversation she had started.  
  
Together, they sat on the bed – Borton reclining against the headboard and Thomas draped over the end of the mattress by her feet. Every so often, he would push forward, and brush her toes with his soft belly.  
  
As Borton questioned him she learned that, along with literature and Shakespearean poetry, Thomas was also partial to art. When asked, Thomas cited his interest in Van Goth's paintings, explaining that he found them both mysterious and provocative.  
  
"They are among some of the most beautiful that I've seen."  
  
Borton pictured the gallery in his head as an ornate room filled with paintings that had been hand-picked to hang there by the engineers of Firdos. She wondered what had compelled them to give him such specific tastes – if they thought it would be advantageous for visiting children to learn about art and sonnets as well as dinosaurs, or if it was simply another way to make Thomas appear more realistic, more alive.  
  
They spent the better part of an hour discussing art in general, with Thomas listing more of his favorite artists, and Borton sharing her opinions on how paintings had influenced certain areas of modern film-making.  
  
“Of course, dinosaurs were pretty influential too.” she remarked pensively.  
  
“Were they?” asked Thomas, stiff tail twitching as he spoke.  
  
“Oh, definitely. You guys inspired a lot of great cinema.” she told him. “Some forms of special effects were specifically created just so we could show dinosaurs on the big screen.” she explained. Secretly, she wondered just how many films Thomas had actually seen – if he had even seen any at all.  
  
He had an enormous supply of electronic books at his disposal, and now art as well, apparently. Borton didn’t think it was too silly to guess that he might also have some kind of self-stored film collection in his head – with options that went beyond what was offered on the Firdos pay-per-view channel.  
  
On a whim, she asked him “Have you ever seen The Beast from Twenty-Thousand Fathoms?”  
  
Thomas gave no indication that he had.  
  
“How about Carnosaur?” she tried. "For a B-movie, it's not too bad."  
  
Again, Thomas seemed to blank.  
  
"Damn. You're missing out. You _do_ watch movies, don't you? I mean, are you able to?" asked Borton.  
  
Thomas turned his head toward the television on the wall across the room.  
  
"Would you like to watch a film? Firdos offers a multitude of family-friendly viewing op–"  
  
"No, Tom." she stopped him. "Not Firdos. Just you, buddy. Do you like watching movies? Can you? Are you, you know, allowed?"  
  
A beat.  
  
"I am allowed, but I do not watch them regularly. They can be distracting." Thomas said sadly. "But I have seen Robin Hood. Errol Flynn is an impressive swordsman."  
  
"Hey, yeah." Borton said, and smiled thoughtfully. She hadn’t been expecting to have anything directly in common with a robot. "I remember watching that one with my dad. Great movie. I always liked Errol Flynn."  
  
From there Thomas explained that he was more familiar with musicals than anything else – not just film musicals, but stage operas as well. When Borton asked him which musical he liked best, Thomas named the 'HMS Pinafore'.  
  
"I have it completely memorized." he boasted.  
  
Before she could stop him, Thomas tipped his head back and erupted with a burst of signing.  
  
_"I am the monarch of the sea! The ruler of the Queen's Nav-ee! Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants! And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts! And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!"_  
  
He was interrupted by a sudden, loud banging noise. Borton jerked around in her seat on the bed. The sound was coming from behind the headboard. Just then Quinn's voice began making stifled demands from the other side of the wall – "Keep it down in there! I've got a hang-over the size of Jupiter!"  
  
It took a considerable amount of persuasion to get Thomas to lower his voice (he insisted on finishing the rest of the song), but Borton somehow managed. In the end she had to hold his jaws shut in the hopes he would get the idea.  
  
"Let's be considerate of our neighbors, huh?" she whispered harshly.  
  
Afterward, she recommended that they both make their way downstairs and see who else was awake. She had gathered enough data to suffice, for the time being, and was perfectly happy to put their conversation on hold again, particularly if it meant avoiding causing Quinn any more unnecessary aggravation.  
  
She slipped on her shoes, and lead Thomas out of the room.  
  
They first found Abrams on the terrace, smoking a cigarette. He looked like he badly regretted his decision to drink the night before, but when Borton tried to comment on it, he flicked the cigarette in her direction and glowered. McCullough and Irvine were in the common room finishing breakfast. Irvine looked even more sleep deprived than he had the previous morning, whereas McCullough was bright and chipper, as usual. Borton suspected that his guide had given him the same relieving concoction Thomas had given her. However, when she asked, McCullough instead bragged that he was resilient when it came to alcoholic overindulgence.  
  
"On account of my heritage." he said with a provocative smirk.  
  
It was then that McCullough's guide, who had been sitting under the table with her tail wrapped around his ankle, stood up and asked for everyone to begin gathering outside the hotel for the next activity.  
  
It turned out that the third day's outing revolved around a scavenger hunt.  
  
"More like an Easter-egg hunt." Abrams grumbled after the group had been briefed.  
  
Both he and Irvine looked awful, each for different reasons. At the same time, Borton could tell that Quinn was in the process of recovering. Standing on his left, she gave him an apologetic frown. He responded with a relaxed nod, previous annoyance more or less forgotten, and she could see the spots of green liquid dotting the stubble around his lips. He seemed happy enough – though not as much as McCullough. Along with Borton, McCullough was the only other guest there who was at all excited about the hunt.  
  
All five guests stood at the head of the carnivore trail, impatient and talkative.  
  
The goal was to venture into the jungle and bring back a handful of things from a list, including a dinosaur egg. They were issued vague maps (clearly drawn for children) as well as large canteens full of water, and a pair of binoculars each. They were them divided into teams. Borton's team consisted of herself, Quinn and Irvine. Abrams and McCullough composed the second team, and the guides, also participating, comprised the last pair of teams.  
  
They set off with instructions to be back within the next three hours. Borton made a note to check her watch as her group made their way into the brush.  
  
Unlike the first two day's worth of activities, the egg hunt was a leisurely one, and in time brought them into a remote part of the jungle. Right away Borton could tell that dinosaurs nested there. The surrounding leaves had been flattened and the muddy floor had been scooped into tangled, bowl-shaped mounds – perfect for housing clusters of fresh eggs.  
  
Engrossed by the scene, Quinn crouched at the base of a nest, careful not to disturb anything as he started to examine its contents. Watching him, Borton wondered vaguely if this was how he looked when he was out on one of his digs. He face was filled with deep concentration, and he reminded her of a detective, intense eyes scouring the crime scene for tell-tale clues. Kneeling beside him, she saw as he inspected the small, shallow footprints of what he determined aloud to be recently hatched dinosaurs, and poked at bits of flaky eggshell littered here and there.  
  
"Do you know which dinosaurs they belonged to?" Borton asked him.  
  
"Hardosaurs. They wanted to know about the mating habits. Guess this is what my consultation went into." he told her.  
  
Together, the pair of them searched, but could find no unbroken eggs.  
  
"Shame." Quinn said, standing back up. Borton stood with him, brushing the dirt off of her knees.  
  
"Would've been nice to see some hatchlings, too." Quinn went on, sounding slightly let down. "You'd think there would be some, since they went to all the trouble of setting this little scene up for us. It's very life-like."  
  
"They probably haven't built any baby dinosaurs." Irvine said.  
  
"I don't know. They've got the micro-technology. They might have." Borton said, reflective.  
  
The three of them carried on, and soon the path began to narrow. As she walked Borton thought she saw a strange shimmer from behind a nearby bush. She moved off to investigate and found a small, translucent golden rock nestled among the planting. It caught the rays of sunlight and cast them back in a honey-yellow shine.  
  
"Hey," she said, "Look at this."  
  
She picked it up and held it out for the others to see. Irvine came close and bent over the rock so that his nose was nearly touching it.  
  
"It's got something inside of it." he said after a moment.  
  
Borton peered down and saw a small, black insect set into the center of the stone. It was unmistakably a butterfly.  
  
"How did that happen? Quinn, is it a fossil or something?" she asked.  
  
"Close. It's amber." said Quinn. "Dry, crystallized tree sap. Sometimes bugs would get stuck in it, and stay perfectly preserved for millions of years." he explained.  
  
Checking the map, Irvine said "It's on the list. We should hang on to it."  
  
Borton turned the amber over in her hand, sending a yellow hue over her face. The butterfly was wholly intact.  
  
She pocketed it, and the group kept moving.  
  
After a while, Irvine spoke up.  
  
"Are we off the path completely?"  
  
"I think so." said Borton.  
  
Bird calls echoed through the jungle, and Borton thought she could hear the distant honking of the Brontosaurs. They must have been close to the herbivore trail now. In front of her, Quinn briefly brought his binoculars to his face and stared up toward the treetops, hoping to catch a glimpse of something new.  
  
"Isn’t this a little strange?" said Irvine. "You know. Leaving a bunch of people to wander around the jungle on their own. Without any kind of supervision. Not what I’d, uh – Not what I’d necessarily call a good idea."  
  
"Just because the guides aren’t here doesn’t mean we aren’t being watched, Henry." Borton replied. "In the highly unlikely event that we wind up lost out here, not only will the guides be out looking for us, but so will Big Brother."  
  
And she pointed to the canopy.  
  
"God." Irvine shuddered. "You mean they’ve got cameras on us?"  
  
"Have done from day one. At least I think so, anyway." she said frankly. "How else would you expect them to keep track of everything in here?"  
  
"Boy, I really hope they haven’t been watching the bathrooms." Quinn remarked quietly.  
  
"But how will the guides know to look for us, if we’re lost?" asked Irvine, beginning to sound alarmed.  
  
"They’ll probably start searching if we don’t get back in time." she explained. "Remember? We’re supposed to meet back at the hotel."  
  
She raised her hand so he could see her watch, and heard him give an anxious hum.  
  
"What about dehydration?"  
  
She lowered her hand with a sigh. While she was beginning to get a little tired of his attitude, she understood that he was a brittle, tired man and obviously very insecure about certain things – so she tried her best to remain as cheerful as she could for his sake.  
  
"We’ve got water, Henry." she said, and tapped at the canteen slung around her shoulder.  
  
"But what if we run out?" Irvine fretted. "What if one of us trips and breaks their leg? What if –"  
  
Borton spun around and fixed him with a steady glare. The gesture wasn't meant to be imposing. In fact, it was meant to have the opposite effect, but Irvine looked frightened nevertheless.  
  
"Henry. Man. Relax." she told him plainly, hands outstretched in a passive pose. "Everything’s fine. You've got to calm down. This is a controlled environment. We’re in the hands of engineers. Do you really think they would let us all drop dead from exposure?" she said with a smile.  
  
Irvine swallowed and stomped the dirt under his shoes. "No I – I guess not."  
  
Quinn stepped up beside him and threw an arm over his shoulders, friendly. "Hey, Doc, you get any sleep last night?"  
  
Irvine wriggled away – "Not as such, no."  
  
"I can tell." Quinn chuckled, backing off.  
  
It was apparently the wrong thing to say. Borton saw Irvine bristle.  
  
"And what is that supposed to mean, exactly?" he said with a scowl.  
  
Borton quickly tried to intervene. Stepping between them, she happily said "He didn’t mean anything by it, Henry. Come on, we should get back to trying to fi–"  
  
Irvine ignored her.  
  
"What has my getting enough sleep got to do with anything?" he snapped.  
  
Quinn crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
"Nothing, nothing. You just kind of, well – you seem a little high strung is all." he answered.  
  
"Why? Because I’m not entirely in love with this place like the rest of you seem to be?" sneered Irvine, tone prickly. "I’m doing what I do. I’m observing and – and making my clinical analysis. And I don't appreciate you ridiculing me f-for it."  
  
Borton was surprised at the outburst. It was the most assertive she had ever seen him. He may have been small and prone to fits of neurotic thinking, but it turned out that he had the capacity to be fairly plucky, when the situation called for it.  
  
He started pacing angry little circles around a pebble.  
  
"They invited us here to point out the flaws, didn’t they?" he said, sounding almost outraged. "That’s all I was doing. Pointing something out. I think it’s a bad idea to just abandon kids in the jungle without any sort of – of guidance. I’m p-perfectly allowed to criticize their methods if I want to." he finished, the last of his energy draining visibly from his face. He came to a halt on the path, looking like he wanted to drop.  
  
_Boy, he really is tired_ , Borton thought, worried. She considered sending him back to the hotel to nap, but decided it would probably only upset him again – being told what to do as if he was just some pouting preschooler.  
  
"Chill out, Doc." said Quinn, stepping toward him again. "I'm sorry, okay? No need to get all up in arms about it. And besides – you shouldn’t feel obligated to pick the place apart. Not out loud, anyway. That’s Abram’s job."  
  
Borton saw the opportunity to curb the conversation and took it.  
  
"Oh, that’s right. How did your interview go yesterday?" she asked Quinn, feigning mild interest.   
  
"Aw, don’t get me started." he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "That guy’s a pill. I respect what he does for a living, but come on. He asked me what I thought of the place. I told him, hey, I like it. It's a little unrealistic, but it's pretty good, all things considered. And he just keeps asking me what's wrong. Didn't want to hear what I liked about the place."  
  
"Bad news sells better than good news." Borton pointed out. "He probably needed something to balance out my review."  
  
"Yeah, well, it was like he didn't care about the paleontological aspects. Some folks find it boring and that's fine with me, but not when they rub it in my face. I just don't have a lot of patience for that. You know?"  
  
Borton did. She was almost certain she really did not care for Abrams, either, and while there was always the option of getting to know the man, she was already fairly positive that she did. She'd met a number of men like Abrams before, most of them Hollywood executives, and every one of them just as cold and calculating. Her father too had clashed with that type of personality. Like him, she never could stand the clinical types. In her eyes they always appeared self-absorbed and rude. Luckily, though, her father had taught her how to tolerate them.  
  
"He's just doing what he does." Borton said.  
  
"Pointing out the flaws?" Irvine cut in, still annoyed.  
  
"I said I was sorry, Henry." Quinn snorted, tolerance gone. "You see more flaws, make a mental list and spare us, will you."  
  
Irvine shut up, and Borton stopped trying to salvage the moods of her teammates. They walked on in silence for the next half an hour, following the path through a dense bamboo grove. The tree cover began to lessen, and soon the sun was directly on top of them. Warm, Borton thought of the Mongolian desert, and pictured Thomas sprinting across the sand after some undefined quarry.  
  
"How did velociraptor hunt?" Borton asked Quinn. She was just making conversation, but hoped he would be up for talking again.  
  
"Most of the evidence is circumstantial, but we're pretty certain it was a pack hunter." Quinn replied. He sounded less annoyed Borton was expecting, and she was glad for it. "It's mostly based on how they look. Quick, strong, small. We assume they hunted in groups to take down the larger animals. Hell, we've found several larger skeletons surrounded by raptor bones. And, you know, they were large-brained. More intelligent than most dinosaurs."  
  
"How intelligent is that?" asked Borton. She was curious to know if it might relate in any way to how Thomas was programmed.  
  
"Depends on the paleontologist, if I'm honest with you. Nobody knows for sure." Quinn said.  
  
Borton twisted the cap off of her canteen and took a drink.  
  
Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she said "Did their intelligence factor in to how they hunted?"  
  
"It would have to, since we think they relied a lot on instinct." Quinn told her. "See, back in the Cretaceous period, raptors in the wild would stalk an animal a lot like a pride of lions would today. Let's say, we're walking through the jungle, and we see your guide up ahead. Tom. That's his name, right?"  
  
"Yeah." said Borton.  
  
"Okay, so you see him up ahead and you stand still," said Quinn, stopping on the path. She and Irvine stopped with him. "You stand still because you think, hell, maybe he'll loose you if you don't move. So you stare at him, and he stares right on back. And that's when the attack comes. Not from the front, no. From the sides, from the other two raptors you didn't even know were there."  
  
Borton felt a chill and allowed her imagination to run away with her. She imagined two more raptors closing on her – a pair of powerful, six-foot-tall bodies flying at her from either side, stiff balancing tails and limbs with curving caws, and open jaws with rows of jagged teeth. Not robots, but animals on the prowl.  
  
"The rest of the pack?" she asked after a moment.  
  
Quinn nodded.  
  
"Exactly. It's a coordinated attack pattern, and once they're on you they'll slash at you with their six-inch, retractable claws. Like a razor. And they'd be pretty nasty about it too. Wouldn't bother to bite the jugular, like a lion would. Just slice you –"  
  
Quinn moved his hand across his chest and then down his thigh. Irvine flinched, disgusted.  
  
"Maybe even across the belly. Spill your intestines. Point is, you're alive when Tom and his friends start to eat you." Quinn said, pragmatic. "Whole thing would take about, oh, four to six seconds probably."  
  
"Jesus." Borton huffed, reeling. "No wonder he hates hunting."  
  
Quinn gave her a puzzled look, but she neglected to elaborate.  
   
After a time they came to a glade of long grass and cattails. Patches of it had grown significantly high, and some of the blades even dwarfed Quinn. A kind of rudimentary walkway had been traced through (presumably by larger dinosaurs), and it reminded Borton of a corn maze.  
  
In true safari fashion, the team moved through in a bunched line, single file, one after the other, none of them saying a word and all of them expecting something to happen.  
  
Three quarters of the way through Irvine let out a startled gasp, the first noise he'd made since Quinn had told him off more than forty minutes ago. The other members of the team turned to see a small, reptilian head poking out of the grass, and Irvine down in the turf – the front of his trousers badly muddied. The head of the dinosaur loomed over him a second longer before it shyly ducked back into the grass.  
  
Borton did a double-take and turned to Quinn.  
  
"What was it?"  
  
Irvine scrambled to his feet and began to dust his trousers off with skittish movements of his palms. A moment later and the dinosaur reappeared with a short squeak, making Irvine jump for a second time.  
  
"Jesus!"  
  
"Relax, Irvine." said Quinn, stepping closer. "It's only a compy."  
  
"What? A what?" Irvine sputtered frantically.  
  
"Compy. Short for compsognathus. They're harmless scavengers." Quinn supplied.  
  
Irvine sucked in a breath. "S-Scavengers?"  
  
"Yeah, man." and Quinn gave him a hearty pat on the back, explaining that the compsognathus didn't hunt, but instead sustained its self by stealing the scraps left over from the larger carnivores. When Quinn saw that he had only partially persuaded Irvine, he quickly added "Like seagulls, man. They're like seagulls."  
  
"Seagulls." Irvine repeated, and after a moment's hesitation he bent down toward the tiny lizard. The gesture was a feeble (if not transparent) attempt to conquer his cowardice.  
  
Unlike Irvine, the compsognathus did not seem afraid. It was short, scrawny, and stood less than a foot high on wiry hind legs. It resembled a cross between a gecko and a featherless chicken, and Borton thought that the animatronics under it's sleek, green skin must be very fragile. Cautiously, Irvine extended a hand in it's direction, looking as though he might pet it's head. However, before any of them knew what had happened the tiny animal's jaws had closed around one of his fingers.  
  
Irvine jerked his hand away. "Dammit!"  
  
"Whoa, did it just bite you?" Quinn asked, surprised.  
  
Irvine gave a shaky nod, cradling his injured finger in one hand. Borton could see the blood beginning to drip, and knew right away that he had been given a deep cut.  
  
"Little bastard." Irvine winced, and angrily tried to kick it. The compy was too small and quick. Swiftly, it darted to the side of his incoming foot, and before Irvine had the change to try again it fled away into the thicket, chirping shrilly as it went.  
  
"That's not supposed to happen." Borton started, shocked.  
  
"Well I don't know. The real ones would've nipped at the bigger animals in self defense. So I guess you could say it was a realistic reaction." Quinn put forward, but Borton could tell from his tone that he was anything but sure.  
  
"Realistic my ass." spat Irvine, face drawn into a tight grimace. "How the hell is a reaction like that kid-friendly or – or – or safe, huh? If I were a kid I'd be c-crying right now."  
  
Borton could hear from the high-pitched tremble of his voice that he was nearly crying already. Feeling uneasy, she turned her attention to the path's edge, to the thicket the compsognathus had emerged from. She frowned, wondering if the little robot had somehow seen Irvine as a threat. She considered that it might also have been programmed with a violent demeanor. She was well aware that there were other violent robots at Firdos – McCullough had told her about several on the flight over. But he had also told her that the robots, no matter how violently they acted, would never voluntarily harm a guest. Their higher programming (she pictured an intense matrix of safety protocols and security etiquette inside the robot's head) would not allow them to.  
  
_So if that's the case then what the hell just happened_ , she thought to herself, unsettled.  
  
She was pulled from her brooding by the sound of Quinn's voice as he suggested that the trio abandon the egg hunt and return to the hotel.  
  
"We ought to track him down a first aid kit." he finished, referring to Irvine's hand, which by then was already bleeding profusely.  
  
By the time they got back Irvine was very pale. Not necessarily from blood loss (although he had managed to leave a relatively wide scattering of bright red droplets along the dirt path). The lack of color in his cheeks had more to do with the prospect that he was bleeding – that there was blood and that it was his. Secretly, Irvine was one of the many individuals who couldn't stand the sight of any injury, let alone his own, and now, with the tip of his shirt sleeve nearly soaked through, he showed his repugnance with a wan complexion and a burbled round of shaky hiccups.  
  
When they reached the hotel Borton was surprised to find Thomas and the other guides standing patiently by. Thomas came bounding up to her with an egg in his mouth –  
  
Muffled; "Iff ghot von, Joah–"  
  
– but he let it fall clumsily out of his jaws the instant he set eyes on Irvine. Together with the other guides, they advanced on Irvine, and for a brief moment Borton began to panic. But a second later she saw that they only meant to dress the injury, with several of them showing real concern over it. Soon the dinosaurs were leading Irvine away to the common room. Quinn followed after them, barking orders.  
  
"You need to wash it up first. Soap and water, do you hear me? Use the sink. And one of you, go and get some antiseptic. There's got to be some here."  
  
Rather than watch the circus progress, Borton turned and headed back to her room. Once there, she took a seat on the couch, not bothering to shut the door behind her. Thomas would be back and lately she'd noticed that, while door handles were no problem for him whatsoever, he seemed to have significant trouble turning round doorknobs with only three fingers.  
  
Finding the remote, she clicked the television on and began to search for a watchable movie, hoping to distract herself from the storm of distressing thoughts now brewing in her head.  
  
She would later come to hear about how Irvine had fainted only moments after the bandage had been applied. Presently, she pondered how likely it was that the compy had struck him on purpose.  
  
What had McCullough said about the robots in the Zombie-realm? That they chased after the guests, but never fast enough to actually catch them. Maybe so, but did they still try and grab at you as they ran? Did they still try and take a swipe at you?  
  
Borton shivered.  
  
Did they ever accidentally manage to scratch you when they did?  
  
The idea that a robot had perhaps mistakenly injured a guest in the past was not entirely outside the realm of believability. Borton herself knew that things could go wrong in any situation, especially when dealing with robots. On one such occasion when her father was still alive, she had been in the workshop attempting to reassemble a damaged metal skeleton. She had gone to tighten a bolt on it's sternum when it had accidentally fallen over and landed on her ankle. It had taken the collective effort of three interns and her father to help lift the thing off of her, and afterwards she had had to limp around the studio in a cast for two long and painful weeks. Likewise, during a studio shoot, a hydraulics malfunction occurred that caused a seven-foot tall alien-robot to randomly kick a teamster square in the back. Luckily for him, he had only suffered minor bruising.   
  
Borton understood that things went wrong, some things unavoidably so. But she had been under the impression that such chance mishaps didn't happen at Firdos. At least, that was what their commercial campaign had implied.  
  
"Come to Firdos, where nothing can possibly go wrong." she mumbled to herself as the listings scrolled across the television screen.  
  
Of course, if things _did_ go wrong – even if it wasn't on a regular basis – she doubted the Firdos marketing team would advertise it.   
  
The careful creak of the door caused Borton to glance nervously over her shoulder. Thomas had just come in and was now standing under the lintel, wiping his feet clean on the carpet. His toe-claws snagged at the fabric, and it was a wonder he didn't pull it up altogether.   
  
Crossing around to Borton, Thomas explained that one of the other guides had been sent into the jungle to retrieve Abrams and McCullough, and that the second activity for the day had been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. She assumed that the rain-check had something to do with what had happened to Irvine, but Thomas wouldn't say, and she didn't dare press the topic. Part of her wanted to know, but at the same time, she preferred to remain blissfully unaware.  
  
"I'm very sorry." Thomas said miserably.  
  
"That's okay, Tom. We can just stay in tonight." she soothed, and reached out to pet his head.  
  
A momentary flash of the compy biting Irvine's finger caused her to hesitate and retract her hand a fraction of an inch. Thomas must have interpreted the gesture correctly, because the next thing he did was pounce onto the cushions beside her. He shoved his lowered head into her hand in an attempt to appear both docile and approachable.    
  
"Whoa, there, buddy." she said awkwardly, and pushed him away. In a cautious attempt not to arouse his suspicion, she quickly added with a laugh "Wait. Let me just find a movie first, okay?"  
  
At that, Thomas seemed to deflate, and slunk dejectedly away on the couch. At the same time, Borton drew back from him, rigid. She was more alert now than she had been, and as she studied herself she found that, to her disappointment, she was back to feeling uncomfortable in his presence.  
  
_How the hell did that happen, Jo?_  
  
She knew that there was a difference between the simple-minded jungle robot that had attacked Irvine, and the guide-model that was now sitting next to her. Thomas had been nothing but kind and gentle with her since the moment she had first turned him on, and his intelligent was markedly impressive. He had told her things about himself – that he loved art, that he despised hunting. He had shown no sign that he would ever act violently with her, so why was it that she suddenly expected him to be dangerous? Now – when he had recited poetry for her, on command. When he had sung her songs and served her breakfast, and taken care of her when while she was ill.  
  
_That was only this morning_ , she reminded herself.  
  
There was hardly any evidence to suggest that he might – or even could – lash out in the same way the compy had. Regardless, Borton found herself suddenly suspecting the worst from him, and so she sat for some time, pretending to search for a film to watch.  
  
The silence she induced was almost smothering, but eventually, Thomas broke it.  
  
Doleful, he asked “I'm sorry. Have I done something to upset you?”  
  
She shook her head and forced a smile.  
  
"No, buddy. Just hungry, is all."  
  
"May I make you some lunch?" he offered.  
  
"Um, not just now, thanks." she said, eying his exposed teeth. They looked very sharp, and she remembered what Quinn had told her.  
  
_Point is, you're alive when Tom and his friends start to eat you._  
  
She knew Thomas didn’t eat, that he had no real reason to bite, but then again, neither did the compy.  
  
"Are you feeling unwell again?" asked Thomas. "I would be happy to make y–"  
  
Borton cut him off.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
Thomas blinked at her and said nothing.  
  
She spied the door in her peripheral vision, focusing on it's fuzzy outline. She accepted the fact that, while her fears were unfounded, and the notion that Thomas might suddenly attack her was a foolish one, it was always a good idea to have an out available.  
  
"Really," she said again, trying to sound relaxed. "I'm fine. Thanks."  
  
Doing her best to appear unperturbed, she casually asked after Irvine, prepared to launch from her seat if Thomas moved to attack.  
  
“Doctor Irvine is all right.” Thomas informed her. “We dressed and treated the bite under the supervision of Doctor Quinn." he explained.  
  
"You know it was a bite?"  
  
Thomas nodded, saying "Doctor Irvine gave us a detailed description of how he obtained his injuries. Please, do not worry. The bite was relatively minor and should heal quickly."  
  
Despite his assurance, Borton was still unsatisfied. Unnerved by how calmly Thomas was talking about it, she tried to view the incident from his prospective. To him, Irvine was just a kid, wasn't he? And why send a kid home from summer camp when all they did was scratch their knees running? But at the same time, she argued, wasn’t it an appropriate time to send the kid home if they got bit by – say – a rat?  
  
_Swap rabies for tetanus and you've still got a problem_ , Borton reasoned.  
  
Checking, she said "You cleaned him up like Quinn told you to, right?"  
  
"The bite has been appropriately sanitized.” he promised her.  
  
"Where is Henry now?" she questioned.  
  
"Doctor Irvine is currently asleep in his room. Doctor Quinn and his guide helped carry him up, after he lost consciousness." Thomas clarified.  
  
Borton's forehead wrinkled, and she repeated the words inwardly. Lost consciousness. Maybe it was serious, after all. She grimaced, skeptical. Or maybe Irvine was just being a baby.  
  
“Did he get a chance to call? Quinn, I mean. Did Quinn call on the land line?” she elaborated. “To tell them about Henry?”  
  
“I’m afraid the telephone is reserved for emergencies only.” said Thomas.  
  
Borton gave him a confused look – “Does this not qualify as one?”  
  
"Does it?" he countered innocently.  
  
She honestly wasn’t sure. On the one hand, Irvine hadn’t really bled all that much. Not enough to warrant a proper panic. But on the other hand, one of the (supposedly foolproof) Firdos machines had malfunctioned. Or, at least, it looked like it had. If not, than it had undeniably been given flawed programming.  
   
Wouldn’t the engineers at least want to check it out?  
  
"I don't know." she confessed, exasperated. "What happens if it is an emergency?"  
  
Thomas' eyes glazed over, and it looked as though he was trying to solve a very difficult math problem.  
  
Unbeknownst to Borton, the knowledge he was trying to access was reserved for special instances – actual emergencies – and even then, was broken into a bewildering miscellany of ordered parts. It required a large amount of memory to directly reference, and in his effort to give a her an informative answer, he was trying to search through all of it at once. The act was greatly slowing his processors.  
  
Borton recognized his struggle, but did not recant the question.  
  
At last, Thomas went to speak.  
  
"In the event of a medical emergency guests are removed from whichever realm they are visiting, and are taken to the Firdos Medical Center on level five of the Firdos resort compound." he clarified, sounding slightly automated in his response. "After being treated for injuries, all guests are sent home via hovercraft with a full refund. If the emergency transpires between scheduled hovercraft landings, guests are evacuated by way of the Firdos Aquatic Shuttle-Pod."  
  
"We'd get sent home." realized Borton.  
  
Home meant the whale. Home meant the workshop, the studio. Home meant _work_.  
  
Chest tight, Borton set the remote down on the armrest and took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was for her vacation to abruptly end just because of her own, silly little overreaction to some random technical error.  
  
She thought it over, straining to convince herself that everything was all right.  
  
Logically speaking, if there really was a problem with the compy robot, the engineers of Firdos were now fully aware of it. She rationalized that they had probably witnessed the whole thing right when it had taken place, and must not have deemed it all that important in the end. Otherwise, wouldn't they have stopped the test by now – or at least sent somebody in to reassure the guests that everything was okay? Especially if safety was such a primary concern for them? One malfunctioning compy (only the size of a house cat, and more delicate than dangerous from what Borton could remember) couldn't possibly pose that much of a threat in their eyes. And really, why should it? The cause behind it biting Irvine was probably just some unexpected glitch, and the chances that it would happen a second time were minuscule at best.  
  
These weren't film-set robots, after all. These were Firdos robots, and at Firdos nothing could go wrong.  
  
_Yes_ , Borton guaranteed herself, trying to loosen up.  
  
_Just stop worrying. The compy won't bite anybody else. The other robots are fine. Thomas is fine, and Irvine will get over it. And if he doesn't, well then, he'll have something else to complain about now won't he. A brand new flaw to point out._  
  
Fear momentarily subsiding, Borton turned to Thomas for confirmation.  
  
"It won't happen again, will it?" she asked him, tone serious.  
  
Thomas gave her a puzzled look, as though he couldn’t comprehend the combination of words she had just used. She allowed him a minute to process before she made a second attempt.  
  
“What I mean is, the dinosaurs here . . . They don't regularly bite people, do they?” she specified, trying to mask her concern with a candid tone.  
  
"The dinosaurs of the Prehistoric-realm are not generally interested in harming guests."  
  
"Not generally interested?" Borton parroted back, emphasizing each word with pronounced uncertainty.  
  
"The dinosaurs of the Prehistoric-realm can not harm a guest. Their programming does not allow for it." Thomas told her bluntly.  
  
Borton snapped her fingers and smiled.  
  
"I knew it. I knew it was nothing to worry abo–"  
  
She stopped mid-sentence, growing suddenly aware of what he had just said.  
  
_Programming_.  
  
"Did – " she began dubiously. "Did you just – Did you – Tom, are the dinosaurs here robotic?" she slowly asked him, praying that her query wouldn't inadvertently cause a paradox.  
  
When Thomas replied, there was no sign of system distress. He sounded perfectly fine. Even glad, like he was revealing some enormous secret. Like he was being given the chance to get something monumental off of his chest.  
  
"Yes, Joanna." he said. "Other than the visiting guests, and the surrounding plant life, there are no organic lifeforms at Firdos."  
  
The statement was somewhat contradictory – what could lifeforms be but organic? It registered for Borton that Thomas must see himself and the other robots as lifeforms also. She wondered how McCullough would interpret that, when she got the chance to tell him. She wished she knew more about artificial intelligence, so she could analyze it herself.  
  
Astonished, she said "So does that mean you are a robot, Tom?"  
  
Thomas nodded.  
  
"I never said I wasn't." he replied coyly.  
  
"No, you said you were a dinosaur." she contented with a widening grin – although, looking back on it, she couldn't recall a time when she had heard him directly call himself a velociraptor. In fact, he had gone to great trouble to avoid doing exactly that.  
  
"I am both." Thomas justified, tone direct. "The robots of Firdos come in many different shapes and sizes, Joanna. As do most organic lifeforms."  
  
Borton sat back, letting it all sink in.  
  
Truthfully, part of her had expected it from the beginning – that Thomas knew about himself. That he knew what he was. And now that it was out in the open she was surprised to find that she wasn't all that shocked by it. It wasn't like this was first time she had encountered a machine that was self aware. The robots she built in the workshop weren't that complex, but the GPS on her phone knew what it was, and whenever she asked it to identify its self –  
  
"Are you a robot?"  
  
–  it would reply with a cleverly dismissive "No Comment". The dashboard computer on her car did something similar, as well.  
  
His technical side had been studied, and she had probed his personality, but now an entirely new aspect of Thomas had presented its self.  
  
Curiously, Borton asked "Does it bother you? Being a robot?"  
  
The television screen hung idle on the wall, the remote control forgotten on the armrest by her elbow.   
  
"Not at all." said Thomas. "If I were organic, my efficiency would decrease significantly. I would not benefit you as I do now. I would require sleep, food, and both my strength and mental capacity would be greatly limited, compared to what they are now." he indicated. "As a robot, I can not feel physical pain, and therefore I am able to perform dangerous tasks if it is required of me. And I am able to accomplish my duties at record speeds, thanks to the way I am built."  
  
Borton thought she could hear a touch of vanity in his voice. She watched as he stretched in his seat, proudly rocking back and forth.  
  
"As a robot," he declared, "I can provide you with the ultimate Firdos experience."  
  
"Yeah," Borton laughed, "But, you know, don't you ever wonder what it would feel like to be, well, alive?"  
  
"Am I not already alive?" he retorted playfully. "I am not Pinocchio. I do not require a Blue Fairy to grant my wish. I already have everything I want." he said smugly.  
  
"I guess you do." said Borton.  
  
A beat, and his arrogance vanished.  
  
"Would you prefer it if I were alive, Joanna?" Thomas asked quietly.  
  
Borton looked at him then. His eyes were round and anxious, and if he had breath to hold, he would have been suffocating. Her first guess was that it was a simulation of fear, but that made no sense. What would Thomas have to be afraid of?  
  
"Aw buddy," she said gently. "No. I like you just fine as a robot. In fact, I much prefer you that way." she added jokingly. "Come here."  
  
She leaned across the couch and tried to hug him, but the way he was curved in the seat made it difficult.  
  
Afterward, she said "You know what? I should eat. Show me how to use the chef?"  
  
"I would be happy to prepare –"  
  
"No, no show me." she said, standing. "I should learn. Never know when it'll come in handy, right? I'll make myself some lunch, and we'll watch a movie, okay?"  
  
Walking over to the kitchen, Borton carefully added "I don't suppose you happen to have your schematics memorized? I'd love to know how you were put together."  
  
"My schematic records are for the eyes of Tier 3 Firdos Engineers only." Thomas confessed. "Otherwise, I would take myself apart for you."  
  
Borton gave him a bemused look, but he was already toying with the automatic-chef. He showed her how to select the type of food she wanted using the menu pad, and in no time flat Borton proved herself a fast leaner, flawlessly ordering three thick slices of pizza out of the dispenser along with a side of salad.  
  
She ate lunch, and the afternoon crawled, but not in an unpleasant way. The majority of it was spent alternating between watching films with Thomas, and playing with him.  
  
In order to fend off the impending boredom, Thomas had shown Borton a hidden stash of board games – found under the foot of the bed. There were dinosaur-versions of checkers, chess, Candyland, Monopoly, and even several decks of dinosaur-themed playing cards.  
  
Out of all the games they wound up playing, Borton found it extremely easy to beat Thomas at Pictionary. The problem was, he drew everything too well. Every picture he sketched was overtly detailed and very precise, and his style was incredibly reflective of Van Goth. She wound up guessing correct every turn.  
  
"You're letting me win, aren't you." she teased him.  
  
Thomas shook his head, packing the big, felt-tipped markers back into their box.  
  
"Ah, well, you should draw me something some time. Before I go home. I could hang it in my workshop. Make a great addition to the place. The interns would get a kick out of it, that's for sure. Modern art by a dinosaur." she chuckled, and Thomas beamed, delighted by the idea.  
  
"I could paint your portrait." he suggested.  
  
"Sure. Why not. Are there paints here?"  
  
"Some. They can be found in the crafts closet, in the common room." he informed her.  
  
They played a few rounds of chess after that, the outcome ending with Thomas as reining champion, and Borton then attempted to teach him how to play poker. But the venture became pointless when she realized it was no good trying to compete against an opponent who could, for all intents and purposes, do a perfect, emotionless poker-face.  
  
Around a quarter after six Abrams came to the door and invited Borton down to the common room for dinner.  
  
"McCullough's cooking this time." he remarked disdainfully. "Feel free to decline."  
  
"Are the others coming?" she asked.  
  
"Everyone except Doctor Irvine." said Abrams.  
  
"I think I'll just hang here, if that's all right." she replied.  
  
Thomas stood in the background, listening. The film they had put on was paused, and the main characters stood in freeze-frame poses on the television screen.  
  
"Suit yourself." Abrams scoffed.  
  
Borton expected him to turn and leave. When he didn't, she said "Is he all right?"  
  
"Doctor Irvine?" said Abrams. "Oh, sure. A little shaken, but otherwise he's fine. You were there when it happened, weren't you."  
  
Borton frowned. She had hoped he wouldn't bring it up.  
  
"Yeah. I was there. Wasn't a big deal." she shrugged.  
  
Abrams stuffed his hands into his pockets, standoffish. "No, I didn't think so. Still, I might ask you to record your account. After the test is finished, of course."  
  
"Like a follow-up interview?"  
  
"If that's all right." he added coolly.  
  
She could tell he was fishing for more bad news.  
  
"Maybe." said Borton. "I don't know why it's such a focus for you, though. It honestly wasn't that big of a deal."  
  
"So you've said." he sneered. "But _Henry_ would disagree with you."  
  
"To each his own." Borton commented.  
  
Abrams rested his right elbow on the framework, leaning in toward her. His proximity was off-putting, but she did her best to tolerate it. His breath smelled like smoke. Behind her, Thomas' eyes narrowed.  
  
"I do hope you decide to share your account. Who knows what compelled the robot to bite the good Doctor. I should very much like to get your theory on the subject."  
  
"It wasn't a big deal. Really. You can quote me on it." said Borton, shooting Abrams a smile which was not returned.  
  
When he left, Borton came back to the couch, all of a sudden feeling exhausted. Following the end of the film, she made up her mind to call it an early night. The day hadn't been all that physically demanding, but mentally, she felt sapped. Walking over to the bed, she began to strip. She had already unbuttoned her shirt and was in the process of removing it when she thought she heard Thomas' voice hitch from where he was standing.  
  
"Pardon me. I'm very sorry." he squawked, and she swore she could detect a hint of – was that embarrassment in his voice?  
  
No, surely not. She could accept that he was polite, but the idea that the engineers at Firdos had been foolish enough to program their new robots with a sense of modesty was just too ridiculous to contemplate. He was a machine, for God's sake. What was the hell was the point? Even if it had been meant to make the guests of Firdos feel self-conscious, wasn't that counter-intuitive in the end? Especially considering what a guest could do in the other parts of the resort.    
  
Suddenly she remembered the other night, when she had been in the shower and had asked if he needed to rinse off. Perhaps he hadn't been offended after all. Perhaps he had thought that she was trying to –  
  
_To what, Jo?_  
  
The word _invitation_ fluttered through her mind and she shook her head. No, his reaction then had merely been the product of her own, tired imagination. Robots couldn't take offense, and they couldn't get embarrassed. Certainly not for real.  
  
Turning to check, she saw that Thomas had shrunk back and was now in the process of studying his feet. She watched him slowly about-face and quietly creep over to the other side of the flat. The sight was so ridiculous that she couldn't help but snigger, though he refused to look up when she did. Shaking her head again, she continued to giggle to herself as she put her pajamas on, making no effort to hide her nudity from the dinosaur-shaped machine now occupying the far corner of the room.  
  
She was still chortling when she finally climbed under the covers. By then Thomas had moved back over to the couch, but appeared to be giving her a particularly wide birth. It was only after she was snugly under the covers that she saw him hazard a glance in her direction.  
  
Seeing that she was safely dressed again, Thomas made his way over to the bed. Cautiously, he took the outermost blanket in his mouth and pulled it up and over her shoulder. Almost a loving gesture, Borton noted. And based on the tentativeness of his actions, she guessed that, were it not for the fact he was evidently incapable, Thomas might have been blushing.  
  
"Goodnight, Joanna." he whispered softly, backing away again.  
  
"Night, Tom."  
  
With one ear against the pillow and the other partially covered by the blankets, the sound of Thomas' exit was somewhat muted. Afterward, she rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought.  
  
Thanks to what Harold Nigh had told her during their introduction (over a week ago now), Borton was aware that Thomas had been instilled with a certain degree of humanity, part of which were the fundamentals of gentlemanly conduct and general gallantry. Borton guessed that the idea to include a sense of shame must have originally come from the human template that was first used to design Thomas' personality.  
  
In actual fact, such a thing had been necessary in order to ensure an illusion of believability in the human robots of Firdos. In the case of the guide models in the Prehistoric-realm, it had been kept a part of their functions in order to guarantee polite interactions with the children they would be watching during the realm's future years of operation. (The last thing the engineers of Firdos wanted was for a child to claim that their tour guide had acted inappropriately.)  
  
While not wholly unapparent, these subtler human attitudes were easily overlooked. But Borton had begun to see them more abundantly as the day had gone on, and was seriously starting to wonder just how complex Thomas' artificial personality actually was. After the trial, when she had her chance to meet and study the other, human robots of Firdos, she would have to compare their dispositions with his and see if there was any kind of correlation. McCullough had already told her that there wouldn't be, that the guide models were likely far advanced in comparison to the pirates or the vikings. still, it certainly couldn't hurt to have a look. for the sake of science.  
  
In the darkness of the hotel room Borton gave a small sigh, and turned her thoughts to her father. What he would have given to have met a robot like Thomas. Ignoring the rest of the wonders found in the Prehistoric-realm, the intricacies in Thomas' synthetic persona alone would have been enough to have made her father insanely happy. She was sure of it. But the fact that he knew he was a robot, that he was blatantly proud of it, was even more inspiring.  
  
As she drifted off to sleep, the memory of the compy biting Irvine was obscured by lingering thoughts of Thomas, and of her father.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of dinosaurs featured in this chapter:
> 
> – compsognathus
> 
> (Hardosaurs are again briefly mentioned by Quinn. It is suggested that they are the ones responsible for the nest site and egg shells, but they are not actually shown in the park.)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Firdos technicians experience increasing problems with the resort's robots, as well as other automated parts of the resort. But things become serious when they learn that a guest was injured in the Prehistoric-realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm bad at math (and organizing my own story-line), I've gone back and subtracted a day from the 'so-many days until total system failure' part of every chapter. Don't know if any of you were paying attention to it. Hopefully it isn't considered too bad of a ret-con. Nothing else has been changed, just the amount of days until all hell breaks loose. This was done so I could jump ahead to the good parts. Eight chapters worth of build-up is enough, I've decided.
> 
> Also, for those of you who were wondering, I've based my techno-babble primarily on the logic of the Westworld film, especially in regards to how the Firdos robots are built and how they operate (although some of it's inspired by how modern computers work – like how there's only so much room, and how screwing around with a system works can potentially corrupt it, etc).
> 
> Last note. Due to how busy it's been at work for me, it's been difficult to keep writing on schedule, but another work-lull is coming up so I should be able to get more done. Thank you all so much for putting up with the infrequency of chapter postings! It is very much appreciated, as are the kudos and the comments!

_. . . Monday (con't): One day before total systems failure . . ._

 

Standing in front of Dawson's terminal at the center of the control hub, Nakamura lucidly acknowledged how tired he was. A combination of stress and mental fatigue, with a hint of insomnia thrown in for good measure. Firdos had suffered an onslaught of problems since Saturday, the majority of which had demanded his immediate, waking attention – and the resulting lack of sleep had turned the past forty-eight hours into a single, long, exhausting day for him. One that threatened to stretch on as his work-load steadily increased.  
  
The main issue was that the central breakdown rate had climbed significantly since he last spoke to the board members. Not only that, but now the breakdowns were happening in outlandish, unexpected ways.  
  
On Sunday, a trio of rowdy pirates refused to walk the plank when the acting captain, a returning guest, told them to. At the same time, four pirate wenches threw the daily feast overboard in retaliation, and one of the cabin boys even mentioned inciting a mutiny. And while mutinies in the Pirate-realm were not uncommon (some of them were even planned into a guest's stay to make it more exciting), the fact that a robot had suggested it without prior prompting was still a minor cause for concern.  
  
And on Monday, Odin himself, the king of the viking gods, refused to do battle with a guest and instead spent the afternoon picking dandelions in a meadow. Meanwhile, his wife, Frigga – who was normally a faithful and obedient spouse – abandoned her throne and slept with nearly every male guest available in the realm (not that there were any ensuing complaints).  
   
These instances of odd behavior all had the same thing in common. They went against the robot's primary programming, and were therefore attributed to a severe central breakdown.  
  
But things did not reach their critical peak until that morning, when a crowd of approximately thirteen zombies completely avoided the group of survivor-guests they had previously targeted for attack, despite multiple efforts on behalf of the technicians to get them to do otherwise.  
  
Nakamura had spent the better part of the day trying everything he could think of to rectify the situation.   
  
For the most part, the robots of Firdos operated independently of their creators. However, the central control hub maintained the power to access them through the wireless network, should they need to alter the programming of individual robots. This was done by tampering with a robot's drive-intuition (what amounted to a set of small, vague, artificial inclinations set into the robot's primary programming). The drive-intuition existed to help improve realism when it came to a robot's synthetic responses. Early tests, conducted before even the Pirate-realm was opened, had shown that robots with even the thinnest of back-stories behaved much more believably than robots that had only been given basic serving instructions.   
  
The installed drive-intuitions were stored in what was referred to as a robot's 'recall bank'. A recall bank was not large, and so only a portion of a back-story was given to each robot. Nothing consequential – no memories of childhood or encounters of first love. Only the bare bones of an existence. For characters like Thor and Odin, aspects of their mythology were added in. For the pirates, knowledge of sea-fairing and nautical navigation. The zombies required the least intuition of all, and were given the internal reasoning of rabid dogs in order to help them hunt and act aggressively.   
  
The recall banks could be added to by the control hub – either manually or wirelessly – and in some cases individual details of a robot's drive-intuition could even be supplemented with altered ones. This was always attempted with the utmost care, however, as a poor installation of new drive-intuition details could potentially make the robot in question unresponsive, or (in the worst case scenario) cause them to suffer permanent system damage.  
  
In the end, Nakamura was so desperate to salvage the remainder of the day for the guests in the Zombie-realm that he gave the order for the zombies to be re-programmed. At the time he figured that, as the robots were already broken, it made no sense _not_ to try altering their drive-intuitions. Although his plan had been a sensible one, the outcome was  
disastrous.  
  
After receiving the new directives, all thirteen zombies had proceeded to tear one another apart, much to the dismay of Nakamura and his team. Thankfully, none of the guests had witnessed this grisly act, and remained perfectly oblivious when the zombies were later removed from the realm. With the addition of the ruined zombies, the number of robots in the repair bay was quadrupled. Nearly every technician – regardless of seniority or skill – became swamped. To help alleviate them, Nakamura put a kind of waiting list into play. Robots were now being separated by level of importance (based on what tasks they performed in the park) and left in vacant rooms to sit until a technician could find a spare moment to attend to them. The less necessary models were last on the list, which meant that places like the mess-hall, the break room, and even several of the unoccupied offices had been filled with pirate sailors, viking squires and limbless zombies.   
   
On top of that, the technicians still had to carry out their daily rounds of maintenance on the functioning robots, which meant that no matter how many robots the technicians fixed, the waiting list never really got any shorter. There was no real recovery period in-between repair sessions, and it was beginning to lead to a decline in efficiency, as well as employee morale. The technicians were already worn out from having to deal with so much so quickly on Sunday and Monday, and the engineers remained at a loss as to what was causing the breakdowns. The workers who comprised the rest of the staff were annoyed that their breathing space was getting taken up by useless machines, and to make matters worse, the problem – whatever it was – was beginning to effect the lesser pieces of Firdos as well. Everything was automated, and therefore at risk for corruption. Computers would stop working and start up again on their own, without interference, and anything that was plugged into the main Firdos system began to randomly glitch whenever it was most inconvenient. Security doors constantly got stuck half-way closed, or simply refused to open. Offices lost power. Temperature controls in the west wing waxed and waned until, finally, they settled on imitating arctic conditions. Even the coffee machine in the lounge had gone out of order after spraying a waterfall of lukewarm liquid at the microwave.  
  
In just two days, the state of Firdos had deteriorated to a laughable degree, and throughout it all, Nakamura had done his best to stay calm and act professionally. He was amazed at his own ability to adapt to the chaos. While he couldn't predict it, he found he could work around it, for the most part.   
  
Aware of how the board members felt, he urged his subordinates to carry on, at least until the trial in the Prehistoric-realm had finished. He felt that if he could just keep the place running smoothly until then – if he could keep the guests from noticing the park's many faults and failures until they were safely aboard the hovercraft and heading back to the mainland, maybe then he could convince the board members to shut Firdos down. If only for a week. He could ask them to postpone the next group's arrival, and that would give his team the time they needed to deal with the twenty or so malfunctioning robots currently occupying the compound.     
  
But the idea of regaining control of Firdos vanished when, nearly twenty minutes after the scheduled sunset occurred for all realms, Nakamura was asked to report to the control hub to review an 'urgent' matter. At the time, he somehow instinctively knew that it was something different – something more than just another disruptive viking or rebellious peg-leg. Even so, he was certain that it couldn't have been anything worse than the Zombie-realm disaster.  
  
Now, with hands pressed flat against the surface of Dawson's desk, he tried to process everything he had just been shown.  
  
"A compsognathus struck a guest?" he said at last, hearing the words leave his lips but unable to fully believe them.  
  
Dawson turned in his swivel-chair to meet Nakamura's face and nodded.  
  
"He was trying to pet it." Dawson said, and spun back around to point at the short, bearded man on the console screen.  
  
The man was crouched beside a thicket in the jungle, standing over a small, green dinosaur. The day's worth of security footage had been paused, and the picture sat, frozen and illuminated by the inner glow of the monitor. Although it was grainy, Nakamura could make it out well enough to know that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. The dinosaur was latched onto the man's finger, biting hard.  
  
Dawson rewound the scene and let it play out twice before Nakamura finally spoke back up.  
  
"The robots are programmed never to hit on a strike. Even if they're provoked." he reiterated, aghast. "Was the guest injured?"  
  
"Minor puncture wounds. The guides treated him at the hotel."  
  
Nakamura shook his head, suddenly furious.  
  
"It's inexcusable for a robot to injure a guest." he snapped, the last of his patience burning away as his anger flared. "Why is this just coming up now?"  
  
"Sorry, sir. We've had so much to deal with." Dawson told him, sheepish.  
  
"Pick up that compsognathus for a total post. Now." Nakamura seethed.  
  
"Nobody's available to –"  
  
"You do it. Make it your top priority."  
  
"Yes, sir." Dawson replied, and typed a series of quick commands into the terminal.  
  
The footage vanished and was replaced with a map of the Prehistoric-realm. Another few key-strokes and the map was covered in a blanket of tiny, blinking dots – the tracking references for every dinosaur in the park.   
  
"There it is. Model number one-fifty-three. Compsognathus." Dawson read aloud, and tapped the screen. "We'll check it's center mechanisms tonight during the repair period."  
  
Nakamura turned and reached for the phone beside the console. He put it to his ear, but heard no dial tone.  
  
"Christ." he snarled, and threw it back at Dawson. "Doesn't anything _work_ around here?"  
  
It was nearly midnight by the time they brought the compsognathus into the repair bay, and another hour before Nakamura wandered in. The compsognathus had been laid out on one of the smaller tables reserved for the repair of animals. It's skin had been removed, and it's limbs and tail disconnected and placed off to the side in disorganized piles. Dawson, clad in a surgeon's mask and white rubber gloves poked and prodded at the inner wires with infinite care.  
  
"Well?" asked Nakamura as he arrived at the table. "What did you find?"  
  
Dawson set his instruments aside and pulled the cotton mask down around his neck.    
  
"Logic circuits on the compsognathus simply failed to respond." Dawson told him, frowning. "There was no sign of mechanical damage or tampering and no clue to the malfunction."  
  
Nakamura swept his eyes over the tiny, metal body. He could see nothing out of the ordinary.  
  
"Central mechanism psychosis." he muttered ruefully. "I'll need to call the board of directors again. I knew this was going to happen, damn it all."  
  
Dawson grimaced. He looked just as tired and worried as Nakamura did.  
  
"There's something else, sir."  
  
Dawson presented him with a thick manilla file-folder.  
  
"To be on the safe side, I ran a remote diagnostic on the guide models. Since they're the ones spending the most time with the guests, I thought it would be a good idea just to double-check how they've been operating."  
  
"Yes, yes. Just tell me what you found."   
  
"Well, sir," Dawson began apprehensively, "The rest of the guides seem to be functioning normally as far as we can tell. All except one. Do you remember the guide model that seemed to be processing a secondary cycle beneath it's main one? The guide assigned to the Hollywood woman?"  
  
Nakamura gave a curt nod.  
  
"I took a closer look at that secondary cycle the guide's been running, and it turns out that cycle is an entirely new sub-routine. And not one we programmed." Dawson finished.  
  
"Do you mean to tell me that the robot wrote an entire sub-routine on it's own." he said sharply.  
  
It made sense that a Firdos robot would add new bits of data to it's programming. After all, they were designed to learn, to adjust their responses to new and changing stimuli. But for a robot to develop an original sub-routine on it's own, without motivation from Firdos personnel, was something unheard of.  
  
"Yes, sir, that appears to be what happened." Dawson said. "And I think I might know why."  
  
He handed Nakamura the manilla folder.  
  
"That's a print-out of the diagnostic scan. I emailed you a copy, too. But I figured, what with the way the computers have been acting lately – might be good to have a hard copy at your disposal. If you turn to page six, you'll see a sample of the sub-routine coding."  
  
Nakamura flipped through the paperwork until he found the correct page. Skimming over it, he paused at a strange block of indecipherable text – not the typical binary he had expected, but entirely new characters, none of which he had ever seen before.  
  
"Although we're not totally sure, it appears that some sort of imprinting protocol was activated during the robot's initial start-up, and that caused it to irreversibly project . . . Well, to project specific emotions for it's ward." Dawson clarified.  
  
"What type of emotions?" asked Nakamura, staring intensely at the cryptic symbols on the sheet of paper.  
  
"As far as we can tell, the emotions are, ah, romantic in nature." said Dawson, and before Nakamura could comment he quickly went to elaborate. "It's nothing sick, I mean. The guide models don't know what to make of _that_ sort of stuff. Not like the other bots do. They were built to be around children, after all. This is more like – puppy love? Love at first sight? We think. But it's all speculative. We've had to go by security footage of it interacting with the guests to form a proper conclusion." Dawson said, struggling to make it sound sensible.   
  
"Why footage?" questioned Nakamura, brow furrowing.   
  
"Because, sir – we're not entirely sure if the sub-routine is simulated."  
  
Nakamura went pale.  
  
"I mean, that is, we're fairly positive it's simulated, it's just –" Dawson paused, uncertain of how to put it. "It's just that the sub-routine isn't written in any kind of computing lingo we've used before. Or that the robots ordinarily use. You can see there that it's unfamiliar, so we can't really tell what it's doing. It could very well be a display of original emotion, instead of the programmed emulation. Chances are it's not, but it makes sense to consider everything, doesn't it?"  
  
Nakamura said nothing, eyes wide. He glared at the paper in his hand, his mind a flurry of conflicting thoughts. Dawson went on, making little gestures to the manilla folder.  
  
"According to the print-out there, the sub-routine may have been the unexpected result of combining both human and bird behavioral traits to build the robot's artificial personality. We think it wrote the sub-routine to sort of cope with the new data." Dawson explained, growing timorous by Nakamura's lack of response. "It's just a theory, though. Since we can't interpret the sub-routine, we don't have any real proof of what's actually happened."     
  
Nakamura exhaled slowly.  
  
"When you took the compsognathus apart – ran the post – did you see anything like this?" asked Namaura, holding up the piece of paper.  
  
Dawson shook his head.  
  
Nakamura hunched over himself, deep in thought.  
  
"Run another wireless diagnostic. I want you to check every single robot in the resort for similar coding." Nakamura said, voice tight. He handed the folder back to Dawson. "I want to see if this is an isolated incident or not."  
  
He turned and strode to the door of the repair bay.  
  
Dawson called after him. "Where are you going?"  
  
"To get the directors on the phone." Nakamura replied as he disappeared through the doorway.    
  
A collection of paperwork had accumulated on Nakamura's desk since Saturday, making it look cluttered and unkempt. Although he hated it, it had become a necessary evil.  
  
Normally, each time a robot broke down, it was noted by one of the overseeing technicians in the error-log that Nakamura had created. This made it easier to track the rise in breakdowns, as well as provide a visual example of the chaos to the board members (as he had done previously).  
  
Since Saturday, however, Nakamura had been backing up the log with paper copies of every breakdown, just in case. His logic followed Dawson's. What with the number of issues the computers had been having recently, he couldn't risk loosing the log or the records he had been keeping. Even if it meant making a mess of his office.  
  
He was in the middle of checking for a specific entry – buried somewhere at the bottom of the pile – when he heard the cordless phone ring out.  
  
A second later and the the board members had assembled on the line.  
  
"Gentleman?" said Nakamura.  
  
Stimpson and Stoker announced themselves gruffly. Fielding, and possibly Domer, would get the meeting notes tomorrow.  
  
"I feel we should shut down the resort for a month." Nakamura launched, paperwork momentarily abandoned.  
  
The rebuttal was swift.  
  
"Oh, that seems rash."    
  
"A robot injured a guest." Nakamura insisted. "We can't allow that to happen. Many elements of the Firdos resort are potentially dangerous. That's part of the appeal. But if they become _truly_ dangerous –"  
  
He didn't need to finish. They got the point, and he listened to them mumble at one another secretively.  
  
"I agree." Stimpson said at last, surprising Nakamura. "We can announce that the resort is overbooked and not allow any further new guests to arrive. We can take care of the ones that are already here."  
  
"We should shut down _now_." Nakamura argued. "Send the current guests home with a refund. We can tell them there's a tropical storm coming and that we need to evacuate."  
  
"The trial has to finish." Stimpson reminded him, thought he sounded less resolved this time around.  
  
"If we can't insure the safety of the guests, we'll be in trouble." Nakamura explained, holding firm.  
  
"But we can insure their safety. Everything's fine." Stimpson pushed back.  
  
Nakamura didn't bother trying to contradict him further. It was pointless.  
  
When the last of the board members had disconnected from the call, he sat alone at his desk, feeling deeply troubled. The digital wall-clock read five after three. Two hours to sunrise. The bottle of vodka was drained over the course of the next hour, and while the drink numbed the grim thoughts that continued to float to the surface of his brain, it didn't silence them completely.  
  
Nakamura was filled with a sense of great foreboding, and he knew exactly why.  
  
Leaning back in his seat, he recalled the mad scientists of fiction, the ones he knew of, and eventually found himself dwelling on Frankenstein in particular – that quintessential mad scientist, the creator of monstrous life. He had read the book in his youth, so long ago now, and for whatever reason remembered a passage that, at the time, had always struck him as strangely beautiful. Now, it only added to his distress.  
  
"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe." he quoted to himself in the dark, and tossed the empty bottle aside. "If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."  
  
As he finished, he put his face in his hands and slumped over his keyboard, eyes closed. Sleep came quickly for him.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Firdos descends into chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, and the one to follow, are super short. Sorry, but it's all part of the plan. Afterward, the real fun begins. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also, I chose to center this chapter – and the actual breakdown of the park – on a random, one-time character, as they do in Westworld. I thought it was more appropriate to show the chaos starting from the view of an ordinary vacationer, to make it slightly more intense.)

_. . . Tuesday: total systems failure occurs at 2:47am . . ._

 

For Gillian Rupert, the question had been an easy one.  
  
"What was the name of the cast-away in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island?"  
  
The previous week found her sitting at a red light, leaning toward her car speakers, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other gripping the volume dial on the radio face. At the sound of the question she immediately straitened, and being terrifically familiar with the aforementioned work of fiction (it had been part of her teaching syllabi for the past fifteen years), she instantly began to search through her memory for the correct answer.  
  
Contents and characters flooded back.  
  
The name of the protagonist? Jim Hawkins. The name of the antagonist? Long John Silver.  
  
She dug deeper.  
  
The name of the ship? The Hispaniola. It's captain? Smollett. The cast-away? Who was the cast-away? She strained and, after a second or two of intense recollection, had found the name, right where she had stored it – a random fact filed away in the library of her mind to call upon when she might have use for it.   
  
Ben Gunn. The name of the cast-away was Ben Gunn.  
  
With the answer located, she used the last several seconds before the traffic resumed to rifle through her purse with her free hand, scrounging through crumpled receipts and balled up tissues in a hurried attempt to find her phone.  
  
By the time she freed it from her purse the light was already changing, and the DJ was reminding the listeners what the reward for the correct answer was. Foot on the pedal, she spent the remainder of her journey home from the elementary school trying the station, and receiving a busy signal every time.  
  
However, just as she pulled into her driveway she managed to get through.  
  
As she put the car in park she heard a familiar voice repeat the question.  
  
"Hello, caller. Can you tell us who the cast-away was in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island?"  
  
She listened as her answer came out of her car speakers like a kind of diluted echo. The next thing she knew, she was the happy winner of an all-expenses-paid trip to the Pirate-realm at the luxurious Firdos resort.  
  
Gillian Rupert had never won anything before in her life. She called her parents, her grandparents, her boyfriend, her neighbors. She went and got her hair done specifically so she could brag to the girls at the salon and tell them that, of all the people that could have won the prize, she was the one that did.  
  
She had been so excited packing her suitcase, and she was still excited, even after the hovercraft had landed at the resort days later. Even when she had familiarized herself with Firdos, with living the life of a pirate, she was still brimming with energy and awe.  
  
Everything had been perfect so far. Good food, great atmosphere, and it turned out Gillian was practically born to be a pirate. The crew crowned her captain of the vessel as soon as she set foot on deck, and she dominated the role with a latent fierceness she wasn't even aware she possessed.  
  
It had been a fantastic vacation – up until one of the cabin boys ran a sword through her stomach.  
  
Up until then, Gillian Rupert had been having the time of her life.  
  
Now, she could feel that life slowly seeping out of her as she sat, propped up against a barrel by her cabin, bleeding out onto the soggy wood. Dressed only in her nightgown and her tricorne hat, she felt cold, and the cabin boy peered down at her, grinning. The manufactured stars twinkled in the screen-sky above his head.  
  
Looking past him, she could see that there were still things happening around them. The world hadn't paused to watch her die. The pirates were still revolting – the boisterous onslaught hadn't been put on hold for the insignificant likes of Gillian Rupert. She watched dumbly as the other, human crew members fled about the ship, screaming and crying as the mechanical pirates came at them with swords, pistols, and daggers. They reminded her of her students at recess. Nothing but loud voices and flailing hands. Only this wasn't pretend, not anymore.  
  
Limp fingers twisted uselessly around the handle of her sword as she tried to lift it, but her arm wouldn't move. The cabin boy only stared at her, false eyes glowing unnaturally. She wanted to stab him back, quell the mutiny, be a good captain, but oh well. She let the sword slip from her grasp as the ship rocked back and forth, like a cradle. She wanted to yawn. So tired. The other vacationers would just have to defend themselves for the moment. She wanted to rest, to go back to sleep for the night and figure it all out in the morning.  
  
Drowsing, she thought of her parents, her boyfriend, her neighbors. Pictured their faces. Nice, happy, human, and with real, genuine smiles. She thought of the girls at the hair salon, and wondered what they were doing right now – if they felt jealous that they were stuck at home with their husbands, and not at Firdos, like she was.  
  
Slowly, her vision tunneled until her peripherals turned black, and everything was reduced to a hazy blur. She felt like she was sinking. The spray of salt water was misty in the air, and the pain in her abdomen started to recede until it was barely noticeable. The warm blood mixed with splashes of cold sea, and she thought she could smell smoke. Dimly she realized that her ship was on fire, that the sky was getting bigger, and the horizon was growing taller.  
  
The last thing that went through Gillian Rupert's mind before the ocean swallowed her up was that – for her – the question really had been an easy one.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problems escalate at Firdos, and Nakamura realizes just how bad the situation has become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, but it's great to have finally gotten this part of the story out of my head and onto "paper". This is the last of these short-burst chapters for now, and things should revert to normal next chapter. Fun fact: it's heavily based on a similar scene from Westworld (with some elements from Jurassic Park thrown in to stir it up a pinch).

_. . . Tuesday: 2:45 AM . . ._  


 

"Sun-up soon." Harrison remarked, taking a sip of coffee.  
  
He sat in front of his terminal, fidgety. The hours between sundown and sunrise were usually hectic in the repair bay, and tonight had been no different. There were a lot of robots that needed work. But in the control hub, however, things were calm, almost dull. The guests were asleep, and the functioning robots from each realm were sending recaps of their recorded experiences back to the surveying technicians for review. Harrison ignored them, bored.  
  
"They've made progress on the zombies, I hear. Five of them are up and running again." Harrison said, fishing for conversation.  
  
Dawson didn't look up. His eyes were trained on his own console screen. The wireless diagnostic was almost complete, and his screen was divided between the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge and a small window of flashing numbers. The information from the first two realms was already processing, but the scan of the Pirate-realm was still in progress.  
  
"You find the trouble with that, uh, that dinosaur there? The one that bit the guest?"  
  
Dawson grumbled a distracted "No."  
  
"Really?" Harrison said, and shrugged to himself, surprised. "Think they'll shut down?" he asked after a moment.  
  
"Probably not." Dawson yawned, watching the screen. The security footage kept switching vantage points, following a pre-determined cycle. "The directors feel that to close down now would hurt tourist confidence."  
  
Harrison chuckled.  
  
"I'll bet Nakamura doesn't like it."  
  
Dawson didn't reply. His eyes were glued to his screen, and his face was turning sickly white.  
  
"Dan?"  
  
Harrison leaned across the gap between their chairs and peered over Dawson's arm. His jaw fell open. The robots were active. Not just active. They were running up and down the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge in a state of utter hysteria, waving swords and muskets over their heads and –  
  
"Jesus." Harrison choked as he saw the captain emerge from her cabin and impale herself on the waiting tip of the cabin boy's sword. He watched as she stumbled to the side and collapsed against a nearby barrel, stunned. The colorless picture showed her white nightgown, now tinged by a blot of something dark – at first only the size of a dime, but spreading fast just underneath the cloth.  
  
Harrison froze with his hand hovering over his mouth. A calamity of emotions ran through his head. Confusion, disgust, alarm, fear. He didn't see his own computer screen, flashing dangerously with strange, foreign images – received from the minds of the robots that were coming online all over the park.  


 

_. . . Tuesday: 2:51 AM . . ._

 

  
When Nakamura was pulled awake by the sudden ringing of his desk phone, he didn't feel real. Groggy, he listened to Dawson's panicked rambling – a string of nonsensical gibberish, one long fast blurt of it – and he could have sworn he was still dreaming.  
  
"Wait. What?"  
  
The second time around the words hit him like a bucket of cold water. The after-sleep fog cleared away instantly with the realization that Dawson wasn't joking around.  
  
He chose to sprint to the control hub.

 

  
  
 _. . . Tuesday: 2:53 AM . . ._

 

  
Nakamura was almost a streak when he passed by the repair bay. Had he been going slower, he might have caught a glimpse of the chaos inside. Viking warriors overturning tables, pirates strangling technicians, legless zombies biting at the ankles of anybody within reach.    


 

_. . .Tuesday: 2:57 AM . . ._

  
  
The door to the control hub opened with a hiss to reveal Nakamura, hunched over himself, gasping for breath. He ran a hand through his hair and jogged down to Dawson's terminal. Harrison stood nearby, twisting his hands together, blatantly unsure of what to do. The other technicians were at their places, trying their best to manage the information flooding onto their various console screens.  
  
Nakamura didn't wait for Dawson to explain.  
  
"Shut Down. Shut down immediately."  
  
"Circuits don't respond, sir."  
  
"Then cut the robot power." Nakamura urged, addressing the rest of the room.  
  
A second later – "Power cut!"  
  
Nakamura held his breath and waited. The technicians stared at their screens as the security footage cycled back through, showing the Prehistoric-realm first. It looked pristine, completely untouched by the madness. The jungle dinosaurs were frozen in place, littered like metal statues all over the various territorial sections they were assigned to occupy. The guide-models were inactive as well, still positioned at the foot of each of their respective ward's beds. None of them had moved.  
  
For a split second, Nakamura became hopeful, but then the screen display flicked back to the Zombie-realm, and he saw the groups of reanimated corpses lunging after the screaming guests. The digital clock on the master screen ticked down, but there was no change in the speed or energy of the attacking robots.   
  
They were still rampaging, unaffected by the loss of wireless signal or power.  
  
The security footage switched again to the Queen Anne's Revenge, now on fire. The remaining guests were leaping off the bow and into the water to escape. A forth switch, and the viking god of thunder, Thor, was smashing his mighty hammer into someone's face on the marble floors of the Asgardian palace.  
  
Dawson punched a trio of commands into his keyboard and inhaled sharply – "They're not responding."  
  
Nakamura's throat felt dry. He tried to think. Was this actually happening? The entire park was turning into a demilitarized zone before his very eyes, and he was unable to do anything about it. He wobbled on his legs, the sensation that he was still dreaming back with a vengeance. He wanted it to be a dream. Some godawful nightmare that would end the second he woke up.  
  
But he was already awake.   
  
Vaguely, he heard one of the technicians ask "Should we cut the main power grid, sir?"  
  
Nakamura blinked, zapping back to planet Earth.  
  
"Shut it all down. Shut it all down."

 

_. . .Tuesday: 3:03 AM . . ._

 

  
There was a frantic shuffling in the room as the system was taken offline, and emergency displays flickered to life on the screens of every console. A moment later and –  
  
"Something's wrong."  
  
"Get the security feed back, will you."  
  
"We can't – "  
  
More shuffling as one of the technicians tripped and fell over a chair.  
  
Dawson squinted at his computer screen, reading the incoming data and doing his best to analyze it without the assistance of his backup programs. At the rate it was coming in, it was almost impossible.  
  
"Sir, we have no control over the robots at all." Dawson finally announced, and pointed to his screen. "They're running on stored charge. The rest of the realms are operating outside of the system."  
  
Nakamura's knuckles turned white.  
  
"How long can the robots go on batteries alone?"  
  
Dawson did the calculation in his head, relying as best he could on generalized memory.  
  
"Some will begin to run down in an hour, I think. Others can go a full twelve. Depends on the model."  
  
"Harrison, are you getting signal from any of the rest of them?" Nakamura asked suddenly.  
  
"What? Uhm, yes – still, I think. I don't know. It's not the right format. The code's all screwy."  
  
"Can you patch into their recall banks? Tamper with their drive-intuitions? We might be able to elicit a park-wide shutdown of every robot that way." Nakamura proposed, remembering what had happened to the zombies earlier that day.  
  
"But sir, that would damage the –"  
  
"People. Are. _Dying_ , Mr. Harrison." Nakamura bit back, sweating. "Begin a batch-deletion of every registered recall bank on record."  
  
All eyes were trained on Harrison as he started to reverse the flow of incoming data.  


 

_. . .Tuesday: 3:09 AM . . ._

 

  
Everyone heard Harrison yelp as console screens abruptly went black around the room, and the control hub was plunged into total darkness. Even the flood lights weren't coming on. Nakamura's fierce tone cut through the shocked silence.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Power's out. Did one of you shut off the main grid?"  
  
"Turn it back on!" Nakamura snapped.  
  
Dawson typed the command into his console – waited. Nothing happened.   
  
"The relays must be frozen, sir." and Nakamura saw Dawson's silhouette turn toward him. "We can't get the power back on."  
  
"What about the emergency systems?"  
  
"Nothing's coming back online, sir. I can't explain it."  
  
"Harrison," Nakamura said,  flustered, "Did you complete the deletion?"  
  
"No, sir. The recall banks were all still functional. I need the power back on so I can – "  
  
Nakamura reached over Dawson and blindly grabbed for the phone. His plan was to get a hold of one of the men guarding the generator room, and ask them to reset the grid manually. But the line was dead, and behind him he could hear the technicians beginning to panic.  
  
"How are we going to get out of here?"  
  
"All these doors are electrically powered, aren't they?"  
  
"Where's the air? The vents are off. Why the hell are the vents off?"  
  
"Who's _doing this?_ "  
  
They were abandoning their stations now, running around the room like a flock of frightened chickens. Nakamura tried to stay calm.  
  
"Harrison, Green, get the doors open before we all suffocate in here." he dictated, trying to formulate a better plan. Things were beginning to deteriorate, and rapidly.  
  
"Sir!"  
  
Dawson's computer screen had come back on, a single source of light in the blackout. Nakamura squinted at the glowing numbers. They were increasing.  
  
"Temperature elevated, ninety-eight degrees." Dawson read out loud. "Oxygen, seventeen percent and dropping."  
  
"Where is that transmitting from?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Get that power on so we can open these doors."  
  
"I can't access anything else." Dawson said, voice high.  
  
From the control hub entrance –  
  
"It's no good!" Green was shouting, shoulder shoved up against the metal frame. Harrison was beside him, looking utterly lost.  
  
Nakamura took action. Grabbing one of the nearby chairs, he approached the door and proceeded to ram the legs of it at the center of the door with every bit of effort he could muster. It barely made a scratch. He tried twice more and got the same result. Before long a line of men had assembled behind him, crowding around him, leaving no room for another running start. The robots were forgotten as everybody began pushing him toward the door like cattle attempting to stampede out of a pen all at once. They encircled him, clawing anxiously at the exit. Nakamura's strangled cries for his crew to regain their composure were drowned out by the flustered babble of feet trampling carpet.

 

  
 _. . .Tuesday: 3:22 AM . . ._

 

  
  
Dawson was the only one left at his desk. He sat, slumped over himself, wheezing.  
  
"Temperature elevated, one-hundred-seventeen degrees." Dawson mumbled to himself.  
  
The skin under his shirt was burning, and his clothes were damp. He ignored the clamor of his coworkers, and the muffled distress of Nakamura – now trapped between them and the door – and focused the last of his failing energy on reading the screen.    
  
"Oxygen, three percent and dropping." Dawson exhaled, dizzy.  
  
Eventually, he forgot how to count and simply sat there, eyes glazing over as the glow of the screen began to fade.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joanna wakes to find Thomas missing, and when she tries to find him she slowly comes to realize that something is not quite right in the Prehistoric-realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the delay, but this chapter (along with thirteen and currently, fourteen) wound up pouring out of me, and it's taken ages to edit. Initially, I wound up re-writing this chapter after I realized the characters were acting very abnormally. I was also driven to keep writing once I learned the leaked plot for the new Jurassic World movie was true. It's got me very excited! But yes – I'm also happy to say that in this chapter we're back with Joanna and raptor-Tom! Enjoy!
> 
> (Random fun fact: the character of Joanna Borton was originally written as an amalgam of real life movie-men Bryan Hensen, son of the famous puppeteer/animatronics animator Jim Henson, and Stan Winston, the man responsible for the awesome robotic effects in Jurassic Park.)

 

_. . . Tuesday: 7:04 AM . . ._

 

Borton bolted upright in her bed, the word "Dad . . ." dying on her lips as she came fully and instantly awake. She looked down and saw that she was drenched with sweat.  
  
The dream had been a bitter one, and it had been about her father.  
  
Already the remnants of it were fading away, lost in the new light of consciousness, but if she concentrated, she could recall the bits and pieces that comprised it. Her father had been in the workshop, and she had been there with him. They had been arguing. Not just arguing, but screaming at each other. Shouting out every conceivable slur and insult. The crux of the fight had had something to do with abandonment, and vacations. Next, the workshop had melted away like hot wax to reveal an abstract hovercraft interior filled with people who, one by one, began to morph into hideous, distorted lizards. They had grunted and writhed in front of Borton and after their transformations, shambled toward her, forked tongues jutting out of their malformed mouths at odd angles.  
  
It was like some warped scene out of Fear and Loathing, and it left a sour taste in her mouth when she came to. Now, with trembling hands clutching at the sheets, she couldn't help but feel restless, almost on edge because of it. Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet touched the cold floor and she leaned over herself, head between her knees, and continued to focus on her breathing until she was calmer. When she looked up, she found the room strangely empty.  
  
Borton blinked in the darkness.  
  
"Tom?"  
  
No response. Quietly, she crawled to the end of the mattress and looked into the kitchen.  
  
"Tom, buddy?" she called again. "Tom? You there?"  
  
Nothing. Thomas was gone, and suddenly she felt very alone.  
  
"I should get up."  
  
It was more of a question than an actual statement, but there was no one there to offer advice, so she wound up rolling back over and hugging one of the free pillows. Trying to focus her thoughts on something other than the dream imagery, she chose to wonder where Thomas might of went, and why. It wasn't like him to wander off. In fact, it was the total opposite of how he ordinarily acted. Since she had turned him on, he had refused to separate himself from her for even the slightest amount of time, even going so far as to stand outside the bathroom when she showered. He had just about glued himself to her, keeping uncomfortably close and devoting himself to doting on her nearly every second of each day – and to such an extent that she had started to feel like she might have been taking advantage of him. Confused, Borton tried to figure out what could have caused him to just up and leave her there, without any kind of prior explanation.   
  
It couldn't have been an emergency. Otherwise, he would have taken her with him, or at the very least alerted her in some way. Presumably, he might have wanted to take a break. But that in and of its self was a contradictory, if not silly idea. Thomas was a robot, and while he demonstrated a clear variation between being made to serve, and actually wanting to serve – the fact of the matter remained that Thomas probably wouldn't take a break unless she flat out told him to.    
  
"I should get up." Borton repeated, more stubbornly this time, and tossed the pillow aside, curling her knees up to her chest.  
  
The digital clock on the nightstand read seven-fifteen. Pulling the sheets over her ear, she shut her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep, but the objective proved a difficult one. She knew she should get up – her body was undeniably awake, supplied with plenty of adrenaline thanks to the vivid dream.  
  
"I'm going to get up in a second, honest." she announced, trying to persuade herself, but she didn't want to get up. Not really, because she knew that if she did, then the day would eventually diminish just like the others had. It was already Tuesday, and tomorrow would be Wednesday, and that meant her stay at Firdos would be half-way over.  
  
Borton swallowed thickly. The idea of returning to her closeted little life of work and sleep and hardly anything in-between – to the workshop and the unfinished whale, to the arduous task of completing it – made her chest tighten significantly.  
  
Where was Thomas?  
  
Borton let out a heavy sigh, squeezing her eyes shut. She wanted to talk to somebody. Needed to, probably. The dream, although short, had been very jarring. She considered visiting with one of the other guests to talk it through. Irvine was the obvious choice, being that he was a trained psychologist, but she had so far failed to connect with him during their stay together at Firdos, and she was sure he would only twist her problems into something to needlessly panic over. That was the last thing she needed just then. Abrams was out of the question, and not just because he was a journalist. She pictured him silently offering her the glass of champagne, face cold and sympathetic at the same time. More an attempt to get her to stop whining then to provide consolation, she decided. McCullough, maybe, would make a better substitute. Or Quinn. But then again, McCullough was too much of a fan to properly confide in, particularly when it came to something as intimate as a dream that involved her father. And Quinn – professor or not, she doubted he would be able to give her adequate comfort without a bottle of beer to back it up.  
  
While she didn't necessarily want to admit it, she would have preferred to talk to Thomas, even though he was just a machine. She knew he – it – wasn't really her friend, and that it was only the programming that made him act the way he did (the illusion of support). And in a few days she would be back home, and he would still be at Firdos. They weren't about to let her take him home with her in case of future nightmares.  
  
Nevertheless, she secretly wished that he was there. Machine or not, thanks to the process of elimination he was apparently her best and only option as far as a shoulder to cry on went.  
  
That, and Borton had come to find his somewhat over-the-top eagerness to please both impressive and, to a degree, rather adorable, though she had yet to determine if it stemmed from his primary programming, or if it existed as a separate piece of his artificial personality.  
  
Even so, his enthusiastic compliance vaguely reminded her of the way her interns always acted. How they would scurry over themselves to fulfill the tasks she assigned them, or how they went to great lengths to please her if she was in a foul mood. But the difference between her interns and Thomas was, unlike most of her interns, he seemed to take every word from her mouth like it was gospel. Over the course of the two and a half days she had been in the Prehistoric-relam, Thomas had never once been defiant when asked to do something for her, no matter how menial the request. Not once had he ever argued or complained. On the contrary. Thomas set no limitations for himself, and at every opportunity he could find, he had asked Borton for new direction, for new errands to run, for new ways to be helpful – to be _useful_.  
  
Of course, it wasn't just his willingness to appease her that made Borton appreciate Thomas. It was also the fact that, over the short amount of time they had known one another, she felt she had grown a real connection to him. Even in spite of how she constantly reminded herself that he was just another robot (another big old toy), she no longer viewed him as one. To Borton, he was a combination of things. A work of art, a friendly ear, and in some ways what she felt for him was not unlike what a child might feel for their faithful dog.  
  
Even from the start Thomas had been the epitome of loyal, and Borton was very thankful for it. Mulling it over, she concluded that Thomas was ultimately a large part of the reason why she had been able to crawl out of her own head and actually relax at Firdos in the fist place, and she knew that if he hadn't been there, she might not have enjoyed her impromptu vacation as much as she already had.  
  
But now, when she needed him, he was mysteriously absent.  
  
Borton kicked a foot out from under the covers, hot and angry. Angry at her father for leaving her behind to be buried beneath a mountain of overwhelming responsibility. And angry at herself for being dumb enough to actually think a robot would want to hear her complain about it. For thinking that, if she had complained, that he – _it_ – would have listened, and offered her some form of life-changing solution that would have made everything all better.  
  
After a while she grudgingly coaxed herself into getting up, and under the warm spray of the shower-head she tried to forget the fact that, soon, her holiday would be ending.  
  
Looking back at the past year and a half Borton found she had accomplished a great deal, but she had also sacrificed her social life in the process. And just when she was finally starting to get it back, to unwind and feel good for the first time in ages, her brain had double-crossed her. It had forcefully caused her to recognize that, during all that time spent slaving away to uphold her father's legacy, a kind of acrid resentment had gradually begun to build up. Until now, it had remained hidden deep beneath the thick layers of her grief and resolve, but the dream had been the first harsh clues that would go toward unmasking it.  
  
She cranked the faucet dial around, increasing the pressure of the downpour in an attempt to wash away the negative thoughts.  
  
Surrounded by the rising steam, a memory floated through her mind. A flashback to her father, reading her a bedtime story. How many bedtime stories did Thomas know? Likely hundreds, and it was anybody's guess how many lullabies he would have sung her if he'd known she had recently suffered a nightmare. She remembered her father, young and spry and full of energy, reading Madeline to her while she had the chicken pox. Did Thomas know Madeline?  
  
"In the middle of one night, Miss Clavel turned on the light and said something is not right." Borton recited to herself, and plunged her face under the water so that the words were muffled.  
  
 _Something is not right._  
  
Despite the heat, Borton shivered. There was an indistinct sense of foreboding there. Some fuzzy, indescribable sensation that was half dream, and half something else. Rinsing the soap off of her cheeks, she lurched back, eyes stinging.  
  
Really, just where the hell was Thomas?  
  
Turning the water off, a terrible sensation struck her. It was almost identical to the feeling she had received when picturing Thomas under attack on her first day at Firdos, during the tour – only this time, it was magnified tenfold. She found herself feeling disquieted enough to consider running out of her hotel room right then and there to hunt him down, but reason overcame impulse and, thinking better of it, she calmly strode to the bathroom door, body still dripping. Holding a towel around herself, Borton carefully peeked out over the threshold. She had expected – hoped – to see Thomas back at his post in front of her bed, or over by the kitchen, making her breakfast. But no such luck. Borton frowned and ducked into the vapor-filled bathroom, feeling increasingly troubled.    
  
She didn't bother brushing her hair once she was dressed. Holding a hairband in her teeth, she used her fingers to comb it into a shaggy ponytail in front of the bathroom mirror, and tied it off. The bits that fell out around her cheeks (too short for the band to hold in place) were quickly scrunched up under the baseball cap. When she was finished, a single strand was left hanging above her right eye. She pushed her bottom lip out and blew it away, and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. The worry was visible on her face, and while it was foolish to get so riled up over a machine, she decided then and there that she didn't want to eat anything.  
  
Not before she found Thomas.  
  
She hadn't drawn the curtains open yet, and even with the tiny sliver of light knifing in through the crack between the cloth and the window, Borton could hardly see. She fumbled to find her shoes in the dark. When she finally managed to locate them (out of sight under the bed by the board games), it took her less than a second to pull them on. After that, she was out the door and legging across the terrace like a bullet.  
  
Thomas wasn't on the top floor, and so Borton made her way down to the common room thinking he might be there instead. All she found was McCullough, sitting at one of the tables with a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's _Lost World_. When he caught sight of her he put the book down and smiled.  
  
"Ahoy-hoy." he said, placing his bookmark and folding the pages closed. "You're up early."  
  
"Have you seen Tom?" she asked, slightly out of breath.  
  
"Have you seen the buffet?" he countered, and Borton looked over at the kitchenette. There was nothing there. "Doesn't it open at ten or something?"  
  
"Aye, but it's usually set up by now." McCullough clarified.  
  
"You could use your automatic-chef." she suggested.  
  
"Tried. Sadly, it's broken. Not a problem, though. I can wait for the buffet. Patience is a virtue, you know."  
  
Borton nodded. Doing her best to sound nonchalant, she said "So did Tom pass by this way or . . . ?"  
  
"Lost your dinosaur, eh." McCullough chuckled. "Afraid I've not seen him, sorry. Might try the back of the hotel. Or the jungle." he recommended.  
  
She nodded and turned to leave when something occurred to her.  
  
"Hey, where's your guide?" she asked him.  
  
McCullough shrugged. "Rosie? Who knows. She wasn't there when I woke up, but I'm sure she's lurking around here somewhere. Maybe she's off playing a game of hide and seek with your Tommy. I'd help you look but, well, best keep an eye out here I think. If he shows back up I'll tell him you were after him."  
  
With that, he re-opened his book and began reading again.  
  
After two full laps around the hotel, Borton decided the jungle was indeed the only place left to look. It made sense that Thomas might wind up there, although whether or not he took a specific path or wandered off at random was debatable. Consequently, Borton chose to search the carnivore trail first, and as she walked she noticed that the air below the canopy was muggy, fresh with dew that was already beginning to evaporate. The temperature had gone back up.  
  
The rising trill of insects was almost hypnotizing, and combined with the soft rustling of the grass around her, it produced an almost harmonious, natural sound. As she listened, she heard the distant crowing of what she could only imagine was the criorhynchus, flying somewhere close by. At one point it came into sight overhead, an auburn silhouette against the dark clouds. She wondered if the gray sky meant it would rain soon. Was it supposed to rain in the Prehistoric-realm? Maybe that was how they watered the plants. She gazed up as the criorhynchus gradually banked left and right, again and again, flapping it's wide, membranous wings above her and drawing lazy circles in the sky until, finally, it disappeared over the treetops to the east.  
  
She walked on, thinking about how the only sound she ever heard in Hollywood was the honking of angry motorists. Now, trekking into the wilderness on her own, the more childish thoughts were starting to surface, and she found herself pondering how easy it might be to simply grab her things and run away into the jungle. Live with the dinosaurs. Be free.  
  
She scoffed audibly at the prospect of abandoning her responsibilities in such a silly way, but the idea, as ludicrous as it was, was indisputably attractive.  
  
Halfway down the trail she paused. There, on the other side of dirt path, Borton heard snorting by the bushes. Quietly, she headed toward them, stopping just behind a palm tree. Amid the ferns, she saw the head of an animal. It was motionless, partially hidden in the fronds, the two large, bright eyes watching her keenly.  
  
Thomas looked at home in the jungle by himself. The addition of the surrounding fauna, along with his isolation, helped to reinforce the deception of realism for Borton. But something was off about him – something different about the way he held himself. She crept closer and observed him with fresh scrutiny.  
  
She centered on his leathery skin, on the feathers covering the pebbly texture. They puffed in rows, giving him the look of a striped tiger – well camouflaged in the angular shadows that fell over him from the leaves above. His head (two feet long) was angled down, snout pointed at his feet, and the long row of teeth that ran back to the hole of the auditory meatus which served as his ear was mostly obscured due to the adjacent foliage. It was almost crocodilian how his eyes remained consistently open, how he did not move. In the past he had presented himself in such a hyperactive, twitchy way but now, alone and unburdened by her presence, his visage looked so cold, so inanimate.  
  
How could this be the same creature, the same machine that had tucked her into bed not more than nine hours ago? The same one she had wanted to share her nightmare with? She had watched him draw, heard him sing, even gotten him to recite poetry for her. But that human-like sophistication was missing from his visage here in the serenity of the bracken, replaced with something unrefined and bestial.  
  
In the jungle, Thomas looked almost feral.   
  
In a span of less than a minute, he went  from attentive guardian, to unfeeling machine, to fearsome predator, and Borton's perception of him came all at once full circle.  
  
As she watched him, a single forelimb inched up to part the ferns beside the raptor's face. The limb, as Borton saw, was strongly muscled – something she hadn't noticed before. She kept silent, catching a glimpse of the star-shaped mark on the underside of his wrist. Something else that she had failed to notice, too distracted by the rest of him to have even bothered looking for it. But now that she was staring so prudently, looking properly for what felt like the first time, she couldn't help but see it. It blended in, to a degree, set between the scales and raised slightly to resemble one, but the color was starkly different from the rest of his body – bright yellow. She wondered how she could have missed it in the first place, and even though it signified his artificiality, it was more like a birthmark than a maker's brand. She glanced down at his three grasping fingers. Each ended in a dark, curved claw, perfect not just for turning door handles and for handing out glasses of drink, but for grasping and tearing also. Together his bony fingers bent the band gently back, slowly pushing aside the ferns.  
  
Borton tensed.  
  
You've been spotted.  
  
She saw the blurred impression of the raptor as he covered the gap to the tree with shocking speed. He halted before he reached the trunk where Borton was standing, and she staggered back in surprise. Righting herself, she saw that he wouldn't approach any further, even when she gave him the sign that it was okay to. His expression looked strangely vacant, as if he was somehow walking in his sleep.  
  
"Tom?" Borton said carefully.  
  
He gave no response, and she hesitantly snapped her fingers. He only stared at her.     
  
"Tom?" she said again, and whistled. The sharp sound seemed to jog him, and all at once he changed, suddenly smiling at her with a face full of happy recognition.  
   
"Good morning, Joanna." he said with a playful wag of his tail. "Would you like me to make you some . . ."  
  
He trailed away as he became aware of his surroundings.  
  
"We are in the jungle." he said, sounding puzzled.  
  
"Yes." Borton confirmed, expecting him to say something more. When he failed to, she added "You wandered out here. I came to find you."  
  
Thomas reared up on his hind legs and, using his tail for balance, lifted his nose into the air. He sniffed and barked, ignoring her.  
  
"Connection lost. Unable to resolve connection." he cited, monotone.  
  
Frowning, Borton said "Is this some kind of a game? Are you playing with me right now, Tom?"  
  
Thomas jerked back down as though he'd only just realized she was addressing him and quickly stepped closer, presenting her with the top of his head.  
  
"I would be happy to play with you." he purred, inviting her to pet him. When she did, he seemed to shudder.  
  
"We should head back inside now." Borton said, growing uncomfortable. His behavior was even more off-putting than usual. She knew him well enough to perceive that this was in no way his standard mode of operation.  
  
Thomas began to ramble.  
  
"What game would you like to play? Hopscotch? Fetch? Tic-tac-toe? Capture the flag? Red light green light? Mother may I? Simon Says?"   
  
Unnerved, Borton clapped her hands and he fell silent.  
  
 _In the middle of the night, Miss Clavel turned on her light and said, yeah something is definitely wrong here._  
  
Borton watched as his eyes went blank again.  
  
"Hide and seek. You're it." he said plainly, and spun around. He was off and running through the jungle before Borton even had the chance to register what was happening.  
  
"Wait!" she called out, but he didn't stop.  
  
Unable to think of anything better to do, she ran off into the jungle after him. The chase lasted a good five and a half minutes, but despite her efforts to keep up, she wound up loosing him in a small field near the river.  
  
She was beginning to contemplate giving up when the leaves behind her parted and a saurian head poked out of the brush. Borton did not jump, even as Thomas glared at her, his muzzle inches from her ear. He was crouched down between the tall blades of grass, perfectly concealed.  
  
"You clever guy." she whispered, astonished, and he pounced.  
  
Borton was promptly tackled to the ground, and Thomas started to tickle her – ever so carefully with his lean, sharp fingers. Struggling, she tried to push him off of her, but he refused to budge. She tried to wriggle away, to sit up, but his toe-claws had pinned her shirt to the ground, making escape impossible.  
  
"Cut it out, Tom." she gasped in-between bursts of uncontrollable laughter. "I mean it –"  
  
In a second attempt to sit up she accidentally collided with his chin. It left a large, red mark along the right side of her face, and she quickly hissed in pain, flailing back to the ground in a brief moment of disorientation. Thomas immediately stopped his horseplay and leaned over her, attentive.  
  
"I'm so very sorry. So, so sorry." he pleaded, sounding incredibly distressed. "Are you okay?"  
  
She winced, taking her hand away from the injury. She could feel it already starting to swell.  
  
"Jesus, Tom. What the hell is the matter with you?" she snapped.  
  
Thomas recoiled, stricken by the comment, and Borton instantly regretted her words.  
  
She knew he was only a robot, and that he didn't really care. Couldn't really care, and that it wasn't actually possible to offend him. Still, she watched Thomas bow his head, staring away with wounded, downcast eyes, and while she knew that it was only an imitation of shame, a piece of code programmed into him by some engineer who she had never even met – Response A to stimuli B – she was suddenly overcome with guilt. Why, though? She had gotten upset with dozens of robots in the past, and yelled at more than a few of them in the heat of the moment. Robots could be very frustrating things to work with, especially if you combined their inability to work right at certain times with the hectic schedule of a film shoot. And yelling at one had, at the time, been no different from yelling at a car when it stalled at a red light. She had never felt guilty before.  
  
But she supposed that this particular scenario was somewhat different.  
  
Out of all the robots Borton had ever gotten mad at, none of them had ever taken it personally. None of them had ever been able to take it personally, but now that she had found one who could, she didn't know how to handle the idea that she'd hurt it's feeling – even if they were only simulations.  
  
"Aw, I didn't mean it, buddy." she began, rubbing her cheek sheepishly, "No harm done. Well, some harm done, but not your fault."  
  
Part of her felt ridiculous, apologizing to a machine. But in the same sense, he was a machine that (considering everything he was, and everything he could do) was worthy of her respect. He didn't deserve the backlash he had received.   
  
"I bet I got you as good as you got me, anyway." she assured him with a groan.  
  
Thomas hastily pinned her wrists above her head.  
  
"What are you –"  
  
Borton fell silent as she watched his tongue slide swiftly out of his mouth. She thought of the disfigured dinosaurs on the hovercraft in her dream, crawling toward her. She remembered the compy biting Irvine, and she flinched as Thomas leaned in towards her face, coming impossibly close. Shutting her eyes, she felt something coarse and wet ghost over her cheek.  
  
 _Licked me? Did he just –_  
  
She smelled the metallic odor of what she thought was antiseptic. Opening one eye, she glanced up at him and discovered that his tongue appeared to be covered in it. A healing type of saliva. Borton marveled, her face already starting to feel numb.  
  
"This is how you treated Henry, isn't it." she surmised, hands still above her head. The pose was awkward, but not uncomfortable. Letting her up, Thomas informed her that the ooze now coating her cheek would prevent it from bruising.  
  
"I'm very sorry." he said again, sounding alarmed. He wouldn't look directly at her.  
  
"Tom, what's with y–"  
  
Before she could finish Thomas seemed to perk, and she watched as his eyes glazed over for a third time. He gave a quick, loud screech and darted past her, slinking back into the undergrowth. Borton stood looking after him, stunned. It was like he was reverting to a baser persona. He was acting just like one of the jungle models. Stupid, unrefined, animistic. Why, though? What was the cause? Hardware damage, or possibly hard-drive corruption. If that was the case then she had to find him and try to get him to come back to the hotel. There, she might be able to have a proper look at him. It was the only way she could determine just what was going on.  
  
She made her way back into the jungle, intending to track him down, but soon discovered that he was a talented hider. She didn't know the area well enough to formulate a guess as to where he could be lying low, and ultimately, she became lost herself, trying to find her way back to the main path.  
  
Before long it started to rain, the first few drops producing a series of wet taps as they struck the canopy leaves, and trickled down to find the brim of Borton's baseball cap. At first a light drizzle, it quickly evolved into a proper summer shower, one that filled the entire jungle with the noise of crashing water. Eventually she made her way to the river and traced it upstream, which lead her around to the trail's head. There, she encountered the allosaurus.  
  
Large, olive-green, with an almost comically short neck and a massive skull – one that sported two, bony horns above and in the front of it's tiny, silver-colored eyes. It stood, hunched greedily over the corpse of something barely recognizable. A mass of torn flesh that was half hidden by the shrubs at the path's edge. Teeth the size of Borton's index finger gingerly picked and nibbled at the crimson heap, and every so often there was a thick, wet ripping sound as the allosaurus tore a sizable chunk off to chew.  
  
Initially it looked like another display, something set up to educate the guests on the diet of the carnivorous dinosaurs. But then she heard the unmistakable, pain-filled moan of a human being, and following the noise with her gaze she found the man's face, covered in freshly oozing scratches and contorted into a grimace of pure agony.  
  
Time seemed to halt, and her reaction was a delayed one. She faintly noted that the man (what was left of him) was clad in a white jumpsuit.  
  
A park technician, she thought dully.  
  
Somehow, he was still alive.  
  
The two of them locked eyes and she saw him raise his hand limply to reach for her, keeping it up for a second or so before it wavered and flopped uselessly back to the ground.  
  
She stood there, dazed and frozen by the gruesome sight. Her first thought was that, unlike the fake blood they used on film sets, real blood congealed, and so surely it would gum up the robot's motion-pistons once it began to dry. Her second thought was far more appropriate.  
  
 _Disgusting._  
  
Suddenly and totally revolted, an intense wave of nausea forced her to clamp a hand over her mouth and lurch.  
  
Panic then presented its self, offering Borton that age-old instinctual choice of fight or flight. Understandably, she chose flight, and took off running in the opposite direction. Her silent, terror-filled sprint carried her back up the path through the jungle, the way she had just come, with her heart racing and her throat completely dry. She did not stop, even when she was badly out of breath, even when a sharp cramp threatened to tangle her insides – and she did not look back, too afraid that she would see the allosaurus, loping after her with it's red mouth gaping. She ran with a purpose, hell bent on reaching the hotel, on reaching the phone inside and dialing out.  
  
Something had gone wrong. She did not know the true extent of the problem, had no way of knowing.  
  
McCullough's voice echoed through her head.  
  
 _See, they're all designed to loose. They could never actually hurt a guest._  
  
Maybe the robot's safety protocols had malfunctioned. Maybe that was what the technician had come into the realm to fix – was in the process of fixing before his horrific demise. Maybe the robot had never been programmed with safety protocols in the first place. Maybe none of the dinosaurs knew right from wrong and maybe they would never learn.  
  
She didn't know, and for the moment she didn't care. Her legs carried her swiftly over the dirt floor of the jungle, toward the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of the dinosaurs featured in this chapter:
> 
> \- criorhynchus  
> \- allosaurus


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joanna Borton must warn the other guests in the Prehistoric-realm about the danger that surrounds them, before it is too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update for you all! I'll begin by saying that this particular chapter is very much inspired by the infamous rain scene in Jurassic Park. There's also a little nod in there to Jurassic Park: Lost World, with the kid seeing the t-rex out the window of his two-storey house. But yes, this is the part where the sh*t really hits the fan. Hopefully you guys enjoy it! 
> 
> PS: Had to line-break the hell outta this thing because of all the 'quick scene changes' so here's hoping it's not too annoying for you guys.

_. . . Tuesday: 8:45 AM . . ._

 

Vernon Abrams was in a foul mood.  
  
The window overlooking the terrace afforded him the best view from the bungalow hotel, and his room was by far the biggest, being a full corner of the building and at least twice as large as what the other guests were currently housed in. Even so, his comfortable surroundings did not change the fact that writer's block had descended over him in the night, canceling out his sleep cycle and making him very aware of his approaching deadline – while simultaneously unable to do anything about it.    
  
One could argue that it was the rain affecting his writing in some inexplicable, negative way, but in all actuality it was doing the exact opposite. Abrams loved the rain. He loved the gloomy, stale ambience a good storm brought with it, when everything lost it's luster and the colors went stale. He loved it when the sun got smothered by angry clouds, because it was like the world was borrowing his point of view for a while. Rain reminded Abrams of home, and usually gave him the fidgety urge to writep.  
  
Despite this urge, however, he couldn't bring the words he wanted to the surface. It was like they were refusing to show themselves, hidden somewhere in the bristling recesses of his fatigued mind. He stared at the blank document on his laptop screen, frustrated and tired. His laptop was the only device the security guards on the hovercraft had allowed him to bring into the park, but only after having an extensive look at it to make sure it wasn't bugged in any way.  
  
When Abrams was first notified by his producers that he would be accepting the invitation to the Firdos resort, for the purposes of writing a singularly exclusive review on it's newest addition – he was both elated and annoyed.  
  
The past three seasons had shown an alarming dip in his program's ratings, and so the opportunity to go to Firdos was technically a godsend – an chance to persuade his viewers back, and possibly collect new ones. And because he was used to being treated like the glorified celebrity that he thought he was, wherever he went, when he came to learn that Firdos had a number of conditions put into place in regards to his up and coming visit, he was less than pleased.  
  
Firstly, he was forbidden the use of his camera crew. Instead, any footage of the Prehistoric-realm and it's dinosaurs would be supplied to him by Firdos personnel, and only after he had finished the trial and submitted a rough draft of his review. This was on the basis that his review was 'satisfactory' in the eyes of the Firdos PR Department. If it should in any way conflict with what the PR Department wanted to advertise to the public, or in any way show the park in a bad light, he would loose access to the footage and the right to air his review on international television.  
  
Secondly, when Abrams learned that he would be experiencing the Prehistoric-realm in the company of four other guests, he was shocked. In all honesty, he didn't give a damn about the rest of them, but the idea that he would have to suffer their presence while he tried to work was almost insulting. Did nobody understand just how difficult it was to take into account all the flaws and problems a place like Firdos had to offer, and jot them down in an eloquent, comprehensible way? Did nobody understand that other people meant distractions, diversions, instances of sidetracking and postponement of his work?  
  
In short, in preparation for his arrival at Firdos, Abrams' creative liberties had been stripped. He had ceased to be a critic, and instead was forced to play the role of a salesman for the park. He felt cheated and belittled, and while his scathing annoyance at the predicament wanted to pour out onto the screen in front of him, he kept it forcefully at bay with earnest reminders that his career hung in the balance – and that, if he did not produce a good review, his show would likely be canceled by the end of the next season.  
  
Head and hands remained in conflict as his fingers hovered above the keyboard. Outside, the rainfall was increasing. His guide had locked its self into the bathroom a little while after dawn broke. He didn't care.    
  
The truth was, Abarams had lost the knack for reviewing, and that was the route cause of his television show's suffering. In the beginning, when he was new to the job and his show was fresh, his demeanor, though not necessarily aloof (but very similar to it), suggested he was smarter than his audience, and found the rest of the world terribly amusing in the way any real snob would. Viewers loved this sarcastic attitude. It was something they had seen before, true, but they still ate it up nonetheless.  
  
In the beginning, Abrams he had enjoyed flying to distant places with the belief that any bad criticism he gave might compel said hotel or resort to improve. He did it with the idea in mind that he was helping them to better themselves.  
  
In the beginning, Abrams felt he was doing them a good service.  
  
Now, nearly five and a half years into it, Abrams viewed travel as routine and tedious, just another part of the job, and expected the same problems of every place he wound up going. Firdos was no different. The flaws did not conceal themselves, like they used to. Or rather, he had trained himself so well to spot the cracks in each dam that secretly he wondered if he was even capable of writing a positive review anymore. He wasn't sure whose fault that was, but he guessed it was a combination of things. Partially the understanding that his fans liked to see him complain more than they liked to see him deal out his praise, and partially the realization that, truthfully, he was better at the former than the latter. His learned indifference to a place's good side was often misread as shallowness, but he saw a place's good side all the same. He just chose to ignore it for what he thought people wanted, for what he thought he ought to be focusing on.  
  
Abrams shut his laptop, reopened it. If he could only get the first sentence down, then maybe the rest would follow, but he doubted that very much.  
  
He had moved his desk against the window some time in the early morning, just before the sun had come up, so that he could rely on the natural light (and the show of rain) as he wrote. Because of this, he did not notice when the power went out, and he was so deep in thought (mentally rewinding everything he had seen and experience at Firdos in a desperate attempt to highlight the better aspects of the Prehistoric-realm) that he did not notice when his room started to shake, either – missing the tiny rippling rings appear in the glass of water beside his notepad.  
  
He did notice when the tyrannosaurus emerged from the forest's edge and came stomping across the lawn, aiming for the hotel. In fact, being on the second storey of the bungalow, he had a much better view of it than Borton and the others did.

 

* * *

   
  
The buffet was still missing from the kitchenette of the common room, but McCullough had ceased to mind, having found a better method of distraction via the kiosk by the wall. He was so preoccupied by the video game that he missed Quinn's entrance.  
  
"Hey, can you believe this weather?"  
  
Turning slightly on the chair that he'd placed in front of the kiosk, McCullough saw Quinn. He was standing by the door to the common room, the top of his hair and shoulders newly damp.  
  
"Makes the trees grow tall." said McCullough, smiling.  
  
"Did it rain like this in the other parks?" Quinn asked, moving further into the room and settling on the couch.  
  
"Oh, sure." McCullough said. "It rained in the Zombie-realm quite a bit, in fact. Though I suspect that was more for the atmosphere than for anything else."  
   
A crack of thunder from outside made both men jump.  
  
"What about that?" Quinn said, wrinkling his nose as though he smelled something disagreeable.  
  
"The thunder and lightning? They've got some in the Viking-realm. Thor puts on quite an entertaining show when he gets angry." McCullough informed him.  
  
Quinn clenched his jaw – "Kids get scared of lightning."  
  
"Oh, that's a good point." McCullough contended. "We'll just have to tell them when the test finishes. I bet they'll change it, once they've got our input."  
  
"Maybe." Quinn said, scratching the back of his neck. His attention was on the sky outside. It was very dark, and he wondered how long the storm would last. "Anyway, you see Jo around? My guide's acting up."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Yeah, I woke up just now and it was just, you know, standing at the foot of the bed. Wouldn't move. Not even when I flicked it's nose. Thought maybe she'd know what to do."  
  
McCullough threw his head back and laughed.  
  
"Sounds like he froze. Technology, am I right?"  
  
Quinn was quiet for a bit.  
  
"So where's Borton?"  
  
"She's gone out for a walk." McCullough replied.  
  
"In this?" Quinn gawked, pointing out the window.  
  
"It wasn't raining earlier."  
  
"What, have you been in here all morning?" Quinn asked, sounding surprised.  
  
"I have indeed, my good sir."  
  
"Doing what?"  
  
McCullough grinned and shifted so that the other man could see the kiosk screen. Immediately interested, Quinn crossed over and bent in front of it.  
  
"It's a platformer, see?" McCullough told him, bragging. "Fairly basic, but pretty fun. I've already got to level five."  
  
"For kids?"  
  
"Sure. You can play as the dinosaur, or the caveman. The goal is to make it to the volcano before the meteorite strikes."  
  
Quinn nodded, his eyes twinkling.  
  
"Can I, uh, can I maybe have a go?" he asked.  
  
The two quickly traded seats and Quinn put his palms against the kiosk screen. A small menu reappeared, asking if he wanted to continue the current game, or begin a new one. Coached by McCullough, Quinn managed to make it to level three before the screen went black.  
  
Quinn yanked his hands away from the kiosk.  
  
"Okay, what'd I touch?" he said, flustered.  
  
"You didn't touch anything. It's frozen." McCullough clarified, curious. "Hmm. It was working fine all morning. I'm not sure what's happened." he said, standing to inspect the wires behind the back of the kiosk.  
  
A moment later and the lights in the common room went off, one by one. Quinn leapt to his feet.  
  
"What'd you touch?" he accused.  
  
McCullough straitened, stretching. He seemed unbothered by the comment, and gradually looked around.  
  
"Fuse blown, probably. From the storm. This place is still new, after all. Don't worry, they'll fix it." he assured Quinn calmly, and for a time the two men stood in silence, waiting.  
  
Eventually, they both moved in front of the window to watch the downpour.  
  
"Boy, it's pretty bad out now, huh." Quinn commented.  
  
"A beautiful tropical shower." McCullough agreed, and leaned in so that his breath fogged the glass.  
  
The rain was coming down in a steady sheet of heavy droplets. It made a constant, tinny clamor on the rooftop – but there was something else behind the sound. Something thicker, more resonant. Quinn could barely hear it at first, but slowly, it became more and more audible.  
  
 _An impact term_ , he thought suddenly. _It's getting closer._  
  
"Do you hear that?" Quinn asked in a half-whisper.  
  
McCullough didn't respond. He was too busy eyeing the trees on the far side of the lawn. They were moving, but not in any way that suggested the wind was to blame. In fact, there _was_ no wind. There was hardly any change in the direction of the rainfall, as there might be with a gust, and everything else about the landscape seemed eerily still. McCullough squinted, his nose pushing against the window. He thought he saw the branches of the trees bend out – almost as if they were being pushed away. Almost as if there was something behind them. He thought of Indiana Jones hacking through the green with a machete.  
  
"No, really." Quinn said again, a hint of alarm in his voice. "What the hell _is_ that?"  
  
The noise was much clearer now. A sonorous, repetitive rumbling that seemed to shake the compound.  
  
"Maybe it's the power trying to come back on." McCullough offered after a second.  
  
Quinn sucked in a breath and stood back, feeling the building start to shake in time with the sound.  
  
Thump. Thump. Thump.  
  
Like the hotel was dancing to the single, unwavering beat of an enormous drum. And as it drew nearer, the intensity of the tremors increased.  
  
McCullough's eyes were trained on the tree-line, straining to catch a glimpse of whatever was just beyond it. He could almost make out the fuzzy impression of a silhouette, moving behind the leaves. He blinked, and out of the corner of his eye he saw something emerge. Not from where he'd been looking, but from the trail's head some four or five yards away. A figure dashing across the lawn toward the hotel.  
  
"It's Jo." was all he said.  
  
Quinn did a double-take. "What?"

 

* * *

  
By then, Borton was halfway to the common room, sprinting like her legs were on fire. She was drenched, soaked through to the bone, and she almost slipped on the muddy gravel just outside the building. She reached the doorway and collapsed to her knees just inside it. In less than a second Quinn was at her side, helping her to her feet, probing her with a flurry of questions. She knocked him aside and made a B-line for the red telephone at the back of the room. Quinn stared after her, baffled.  
  
The sound was growing louder.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Quinn asked her.  
  
She said nothing and dialed out. Silence stung in her ear. The sting spread over her face and made her eyes burn. The line was dead. She tried again – still dead – and a third time – _still dead god damn it all_. She slammed the phone back into the receiver and tried to think. Panic filled her brain. _Dead, dead, why is it dead?!_  
  
It was then that she noticed the lights weren't on.  
  
And then she remembered –  _Tom!_  
  
She spun around to see McCullough and Quinn gaping at her, wide-eyed.  
  
"Where are your guides?" she sputtered – only it came out sounding more like _whereareyourguides_.  
  
Before either of them could say anything, a booming crack erupted from outside the window. The three of them turned in time to watch the tree topple to the ground, shoved out of the way with little effort by the tyrannosaurus-rex.  
  
It's head rose into the air some forty feet, and it's small, nub-like arms twitched stiffly at it's sides. It's jaws alone were more than enough to both scare and mystify any human being, young or old. Fifty conical, bone-crunching teeth protruded from it's scaly lips, ranging in size from very small to over nine inches long. All three spectators could see that it had been built to look exactly like anybody might expect it to look. Huge and sturdy. It was both physically stunning, and absolutely terrifying.  
  
The rain poured down as it marched, wetting the hide and making it appear sleek and ominous. Short blasts of mist spouted from it's nose as it went.  
  
No one said a word.  
  
No one questioned what the tyrannosaurus was doing so close to the hotel, or what had prompted it to wander off of whatever trail it was designated to. Each of the hypnotized onlookers simply stared silently out of the window as the massive creature lumbered toward them, every hefty footstep sending a violent pulse through the hotel.  
  
The horrific carnage left by the allosaurus was instantly forgotten in light of this new, and significantly larger predator. As it advanced, Borton dumbly thought that it walked like a pigeon. She remembered having seen dozens of pigeons in the parking lot outside the workshop over the recent months. Dirty, tiny, ugly little birds who left her car especially messy during the late spring, and seemed to coo without rest in the winter. This magnificent, terrifying dinosaur (now nearly a yard away) had been unfortunate enough to evolve into the flocks of gutter rats that nobody liked, whose place on the food chain was very low, and whose brains were very small. For a half second she caught herself feeling sorry for the tyrannosaurus.  
  
But then she realized – _It's flocking this way._  
  
Time seemed to halt as the jaws of the tyrannosaurus parted, filling the air with a deep, powerful braying that rattled the very bones in her body. She clamped her hands over her ears, grinding her teeth together, half out of horror, half out of pain. Quinn ducked down like he the noise was something psychical that had just been thrown at him, and McCullough began to quickly back away from the window. In his haste he nearly tripped over the couch.  
  
The tyrannosaurus was moving again, now just twenty feet away.  
  
"We should go."  
  
It was Quinn who said it, but when Borton bothered to look she saw that he was routed in place.  
  
"We should make a run for it." he continued, voice a low whisper. "Now."  
  
"Why?" McCullough piped in. Borton couldn't tell if he was frightened or joking.  
  
"This isn't part of the park." she told them both. "Something's gone wrong with the robots."  
  
"How do you know?" McCullough questioned, tone uncertain.  
  
"I saw one. It was – " she struggled to bring herself to say it. "It was eating somebody. An employee, I think. I'm not lying."  
  
"That's impossible." McCullough argued, but it was clear from the sound of his voice that he believed her. Why on earth would Borton lie to him?  
  
"I saw it." Borton maintained, and both men seemed to accept her explanation without further hesitancy.    
  
"We should go." Quinn said again, shifting uncomfortably.  
  
"Where?" McCullough asked, and Quinn went silent.  
  
ten feet away.  
  
"Don't move." Borton said suddenly. The others eyed her with expressions of confusion and dread. "It's vision's based on movement. If it thinks there's nothing here, maybe it'll go away."  
  
"It can hear us. Probably. Sees our heat – they're designed to read temperature aren't they." McCullough brought up.  
  
"Maybe not in the rain. It's only a jungle model." Borton reasoned, trying to think. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her face felt numb.  
  
Seven feet away.  
 

* * *

  
Above them, Abrams was on the terrace, peering down as the gargantuan robot came closer and closer, until it finally arrived in front of the building. He stretched over the wet railing, palms cold and slippery, with his mouth hanging open. He had forgotten how to speak, how to move. He was stuck there, fixed to the railing as the tyrannosaur's box-like head raised into view in front of him. The two cross-looking orbs aimed directly at his face, set into leathery holes with his reflection at their center.  
  
Abrams was not a cowardly man. Far from it. In his youth, he had done a number of things that others felt were dangerous and exciting, and he had enjoyed them. Skydiving, bungie-jumping, he had even gone swimming with great whites off the coast of Australia. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that the tyrannosaurus was all still part of an attraction – entirely safe. It had to be. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to run anyway.  
  
All at once, something like a switch flipped on inside him, and he was free from the railing. Seconds later his hands were clawing frantically at the door to his hotel room.  
  
It was locked.  
  
He hadn't locked it.  
  
Quickly he moved to the window, seeing the hazy form of the tyrannosaurus's mammoth skull in the glass, following him as he went. Peering into the room, he found his guide gazing back at him from his desk. The coelophysis was holding his laptop in it's leathery hands, watching Abrams with a look of mingled fascination and delight. Abrams thought about tapping on the glass, trying to get his guide's attention, but somehow knew it would be a futile gesture.  
  
Back to the door again, and Abrams felt the puff of mist leave the rex's nostrils and flap the coattails of his expensive jacket. He leaned against the door, tried to shoulder it open, and when he couldn't he made a graceless hurtle for the stairwell. But his shoes were flat-soled and he wound up tripping down the second half of steps like a drunken child. He landed at the base of the stairwell dazed and winded. A shock of pain ripped through his left ankle when he tried to get up, and it sent him flailing back to the pavement in anguish. Twisted, probably, or maybe broken. He should have gone for Irvine's room instead.    
  
Another pang of stinging hurt as Abrams wrenched himself up into a sitting position. He froze when he caught sight of the tyrannosaurus. It was bent down, stooping under the terrace and peering right at him, giant yellowing eyes only slightly larger than his entire head. It seemed to be studying him, and it's vast form usurped his vision. All Abrams could do was stare back. He didn't see the others come out of the common room to watch. McCullough first, bursting out of the doorway and then halting mid-stride as the snout of the tyrannosaurus snaked forward and bumped one of the support beams of the bungalow. Then Quinn and Borton, with small, hesitant steps, like they were walking on glass.  
  
They had heard him fall down the stairs, and come out to investigate.  
  
When Abrams finally caught sight of them (each looked utterly horrified) he stammered a hoarse and huffing "H-Help", but no one approached. He repeated the word twice more before he realized inaction would only follow. From there, he started to drag himself forward, toward the common room and the onlookers just in front of it.  
  
The tyrannosaurus weaved forward, head exploding through the support beam and sending chunks of cement flying in all directions.  
 

* * *

  
It happened very quickly. Borton could only experience the events. She could not process them.  
  
She felt Quinn grab her shoulders and pull her back as a piece of wood went skidding past her right foot. A portion of the terrace began to collapse, and she and the others stared as Abrams curled his head under his arms to protect himself from the falling debris.  
  
A second later and the dust cleared. Borton saw that McCullough was out on the lawn, while she and Quinn were hugging the wall.  
  
Stunned, she watched as the tyrannosaurus began to nose around in the rubble, pushing away the resulting piles until it found what it wanted and lunged. That was when she looked away, but even with her ears pressing into Quinn's chest she still heard Abrams screaming. The tyrannosaurus had grabbed onto Abrams' leg, and was shaking him around like a rag doll and taking him further and further into it's mouth. And Abrams was screaming.

The sound was high and piercing.

It stopped very suddenly, and then Quinn was pushing her forward, down toward the other stairwell at the far end of the building. When Borton opened her eyes again she saw McCullough racing alongside her in the mud. She reached the stairwell ahead of them both and swung around the railing, curving hard and launching up the steps in a furious climb.

She saw right away that part of the terrace was gone. Thanks to the tyrannosaurs it now stopped abruptly at a jagged edge just before the last two rooms, and Borton was glad she wouldn't have to somehow jump the gap.  
  
Quinn steered her toward Irvine's hotel room and at the last second thrust her bodily out of the way in order to kick the door in, not bothering to knock beforehand. She caught herself against the adjacent windowpane as the door flung open on it's hinges, revealing Irvine. He was sitting placidly on the bed, holding his automatic-chef in one hand, and a kitchen knife in the other. His face was sweaty and discolored, and his guide was laying on the rug just in front of him in battered pieces in a pool of oily, gray liquid intermixed with dark red.  
  
Quinn was the first into the room, and the first to speak.  
  
"Jesus fuck, Henry."  
  
Irvine's voice was surprisingly calm.  
  
"He attacked me."  
  
The head of the hypsilophodon had been smashed open and one of it's arms cut through to the metal bone underneath. It's tail was bent at the joint, and there were significant tears in the skin. Borton paled, picturing Thomas pinning her down and biting her face rather than liking it. She shivered. Whatever had affected Thomas had clearly affected Irvine's guide, but in a way much more severe.  
  
 _Same thing with the one in the jungle, and with the T-rex_ , she thought to herself.  
  
Meanwhile, Irvine held the automatic-chef up for the others to see. It was badly dented.  
  
"I tried to get out. To help. He wouldn't let me." Irvine went on, pointing the knife at his guide. "I had to."  
  
Borton moved inside the room to better inspect the hypsilophodon. The killing blow had been dealt with extreme strength, and she could hardly believe Irvine capable of such violence – but the evidence was there in front of her, indisputable. Peering into the collapsed hole at the base of the robot's neck, she saw that it's hard-drive was fractured and chipped. The gray liquid was still leaking from it's mouth, crusting at the corners where it had started to dry. Hydraulic fluid, Borton determined.  
  
Behind her, McCullough paced in the doorway, constantly checking the terrace and stairwell as if expecting to see the tyrannosaurus rear it's ugly head again and somehow take a bite at them. The terrace would have made that impossible, and they all knew that the dinosaur was currently busy, but even so, he kept pointing to the end of the corridor – silently reminding the group that the threat was still down there, and that they should make a move sooner rather than later.  
  
"Henry, it's okay. Pretty sure you're not going to get in trouble, man." Quinn said, straining to make his hurried voice sound gentle. He put his hand out, wordlessly asking for the knife, and hesitantly Irvine handed it over. Quinn threw it toward the kitchen and it landed in the sink with a clang.  
  
"Abrams is dead." McCullough interrupted. "T-rex got him. It's right down there."  
  
A beat as Irvine repeated the remark to himself in utter disbelief. He turned to Borton, composure suddenly gone.  
  
"What the hell's going on?"  
  
"I don't know." she admitted helplessly.  
  
"But you're the expert!" he shrieked, veins bulging on his forehead.    
  
"Yes," she hissed, trying to keep control. "But these robots are advanced. Christ, they're more advanced than anything I've ever touched, let alone built. I may know the basics but I do not know why this is happening."  
  
"We need to leave." Quinn pointed out. "We can go back to the lobby."  
  
"Why the lobby?" Irvine said, tense.  
  
"I don't know. There's got to be another phone there." Quinn tried.  
  
"If there's an emergency exit, it would probably be near the lobby too. Right?" McCullough advised them. "If there is, maybe we can get out of here that way."  
  
"Fine. Let's go." Quinn said.  
  
"What? Out there? Are you _insane_?" Irvine protested. "How are we supposed to get past the T-rex?"  
  
"We can't stay here." Quinn insisted.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Building's damaged structurally. It could come down."  
  
"I'm staying put. People will come for us." Irvine said, and Borton could tell he was struggling not to cry in front of them. "They've got to. We're important."  
  
"People already came." Borton cut in. "I saw an employee. He got killed, too. Maybe he was coming to warn us, but he's right, we have to get out of here."  
  
"I'm staying put." Irvine announced, and tossed the automatic-chef down in front of his feet in a childish gesture of defiance.  
  
Borton stepped forward.

"Your guide attacked you? Well, the T-rex can't get you up here but what's to stop the other robots – the smaller ones – from stalking on up after you?"  
  
Irvine looked from Borton to McCullough, and then at Quinn. Quinn gave him a confirming nod, and what color remained in Irvine's cheeks drained away.  
  
"They could show up here, any time. The lobby's our best shot." Borton explained, forcing herself to sound less nervous than she blatantly was.  
  
The four of them heard the tyrannosaurus reel from the garden below, and Quinn didn't wait for Irvine to make up his mind. Reaching over the broken hypsilophodon, Quinn grabbed Irvine's wrist, wrenched him to his feet, and propelled him forward and out onto the terrace.  
  
As they passed by Borton's room, she paused and went to the door.  
  
The rest of them stopped along with her.  
  
"What are you doing?" Quinn asked. "We don't have time for –"  
  
"Just wait." she requested, and quietly stepped into her hotel room for the final time.  
  
The light from the open doorway threw Borton's shadow onto the back wall, stretching it long-ways against the ceiling and making her look far taller than she was.  
  
 _As tall as a tyrannosaurus_ , she noted inwardly.  
  
The curtains were still closed, and in the semi-darkness she searched – scatterbrained – for something that she imagined might come in useful later on. If there _was_ a later on.  
  
"Will you hurry up. _Please_." she heard Quinn say from the terrace.  
  
She was at the dresser, clawing through the drawers, knocking things off the top in her haste. Next, she fled to the bathroom and grabbed a small, travel-sized bottle of mouthwash and her toe-nail clippers, checking that the sharpened-file was still attached. It was the closest thing she had to a weapon that she could think of, and while not as imposing as Irvine's kitchen knife, it was at the very least easily transportable. She grabbed a spare couple of Q-tips, and a several tampons from the cabinet behind the mirror – _You never know, and wouldn't that be beautiful timing all around_ , she thought to herself with a grimace. Last, she rolled a wad of toilet paper into her hands and stuffed it into her pocket for safe-keeping, along with the rest of the items she had collected. She didn't know why she thought any of it was worth taking. At this point, she was just trying to make up for having kept the others waiting there for as long as she had.  
  
Before she turned to leave, she made a quick mental list, her mind going a mile a minute.  
  
 _Wallet? Keys? Underwear?_  
  
She could hear somebody's foot tapping impatiently on the rug just inside the room. Irvine's, probably. Or McCullough's. She didn't bother to check. Instead, she moved back across to the bed where a small pile of dirty clothes had been pushed up against the leg of the nightstand, and began rifling through them. Picking up the pair of jeans she'd worn the day before, she felt the small, yellow piece of amber through the fabric and fished it out. It caught the light in her hand, and she dropped it, suddenly terrified. Seconds later she scooped it back up and fit it as best she could into her pocket – the souvenir, her only one – and with that, made her way back out of the room.  
  
Together, the four of them crept across the corridor, ducking low, and tip-toed down the stairwell they had come up in an attempt to skirt the notice of the tyrannosaurus. They were halfway down the gravel path and almost to the lawn when the gargantuan dinosaur – squatting over what remained of Abrams – saw the movement, and whirled, taking off after them fast. Borton could feel the ground trembling under her feet as it chased them, and she didn't have to turn and look to know that it was right on their heels. By the time McCullough tripped, flying face-first into the grass with a clumsy thud, Quinn and Irvine were already at the path's head on the other side of the courtyard. The decision to reverse her direction and go back for McCullough was instantaneous for Borton, and one made out of pure instinct. She couldn't just leave him there, and as she helped him to his feet she caught sight of the others at the jungle's entrance, staring after her. It was obvious that Irvine wanted to keep going, but Quinn had him pinned there, kept in place by a firm and angry hold of his left arm. Borton watched and waited as the tyrannosaurus started to circle.  
  
In the center of the courtyard that separated the hotel from the jungle, the tyrannosaurus bent down and eyed it's quarry with curious intrigue before parting it's jaws and releasing a vicious gust of warmth that sent Borton's baseball cap floating through the air. It's breath smelled of oil and wet copper, and Abram's blood stained it's thick, metal teeth.  
  
The option to try for the jungle was still there, but the odds of success were too slim to bother calculating. It wasn't until she felt McCullough's fingers intertwine with her own that Borton became acutely aware that she was going to die. It registered for her not as opinion, but fact. However, before she could properly come to terms with it, her attention was pulled elsewhere – unequivocally focused on what was happening behind the tyrannosaurus.  
  
The raptor was crouched in his pre-attack stance, just on the other side of the rex's muscular thigh. Borton watched as the tyrannosaurus turned and looked at Thomas, appearing almost shocked by the intrusion. She didn't know when Thomas had arrived to intervene, and she didn't want to think about his motives, what they were and whether or not they might be synthetic or real. Right then, she chose to believe that he was untouched by whatever corruption had taken hold of Irvine's guide, the tyrannosaurus, and the allosaurus. And in that exact instance, she knew that he meant her and the others no harm, and was instead there to protect them.  
  
The tyrannosaurus drew itself up to its full height and roared. An indicator that Thomas was too close, and a warning for him to about-face and leave. Thomas screeched his response, a fierce battle cry devoid of any playfulness or innocent intent, and began hopping from side to side like some kind of spastic rabbit. A challenge-display. To Borton's bewilderment, the tyrannosaurus was buying the distraction. It followed Thomas' metronome-actions, eyes locked on this new, more limber target. Slowly, it began to back away from Borton and McCullough. Thomas too inched back several steps before he took off, running like a cheetah across the lawn in the opposite direction. He sped toward the gravel path outside the hotel and paused to make sure the tyrannosaur was still coming. It was. A moment later and Thomas was off again, darting around the corner of the building and into the surrounding woodland. The tyrannosaur bounded after him, flicking an overhanging branch away with it's chin and swiping a sizable block of mortar off the side of the hotel with a thick swipe of its lashing tail.    
  
Borton gazed at the scene, mystified. Just then McCullough's hand was on her shirt sleeve, tugging at the fabric, and not three seconds later the two of them were scrambling awkwardly across the tree-line to rejoin Quinn and Irvine.  
  
After that, everything passed in a blur.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> List of dinosaurs featured in this chapter:
> 
> \- tyrannosaurus-rex
> 
> \- hypsilophodon (it is Irvine's guide)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the delay, but I've been trying to crank these chapters out as best I can in order to get to Human-Tom (who – spoilers – should appear within the next four chapters or so, depending on how I choose to divide the plot). So yes, I hope you all enjoy and of course, comments and criticisms are always welcome!
> 
> Random fun fact: Joanna Borton's surname is a hint at the Simpson's Episode 'Itchy and Scratchyland', which parodies both Westworld and Jurassic Park. The gag in the episode is that the park runs out of personalized license plates, but only those with the name Bort – instead of Bart. A park technician is even seen saying "We are out of Bort license plates. I repeat: we need more Bort license plates in the gift shop."

_. . . Tuesday: 10:13 AM . . ._

 

In the thick of the copse a motionless, dark green figure about the size of a deer stood watching the approaching quartet, it's bulbous head camouflaged by the dappled shadows of the suspended vines. It went unobserved by the passersby as they hurried quickly through the undergrowth along the dirt path. As they proceeded, nearing the river that halved the jungle, it followed stealthily after them, the sound of the rain on the leaves masking it's movement.  
  
After entering the jungle Quinn took up the position of group leader. He marched ahead of the others, the front-most point of a diamond formation, with Irvine and McCullough flanking him on both sides. Borton brought up the rear, mindful of her surroundings and checking over her shoulder every other second to make sure the tyrannosaurus was not in pursuit. Her focus was divided between this task and scanning the path for signs of familiarity. Was this the way they had first entered the Prehistoric-realm? Were they headed in the right direction? She had no idea. It totaled four days since the triceratops had carried them off to the hotel, and she couldn't be sure if they were retracing their steps correctly. Initially, she had assumed that – on the day they would have been set to leave – the hulky dinosaurs would have reappeared and carried them back out the way they'd originally come. Calm and orderly.  
  
Running haphazardly through the jungle, relying on memory alone to find their way, was not Borton's preferred exit strategy. But she knew it was all they had now that things had gone haywire in the park.  
  
As they ran along, Borton did her best to tune everything else out in order to pay apt attention to the route in case they had to double-back for some reason. Even the image of Thomas bravely luring the tyrannosaurus away was pushed aside so she could think more clearly.  
  
She braced herself, not knowing what more to expect and ready for anything.  
  
Under the canopy the temperature was dropping, and as the last of the humidity seemed to seep away a thick, ominous mist crept through the encompassing clumps of trees. Soggy clothing stuck to cold bodies, and having been wet the longest, Borton was already shivering. She did her best to ignore it and press on without complaint.  
  
"How far until we get there?" she heard Ivrine ask. He kept his voice low.  
  
When Quinn didn't reply McCullough said "We're close. I think."  
  
"What if you're wrong? What if we're going around in circles?"  
  
None of them answered.  
  
"It's going to get us." Irvine squeaked under his breath.  
  
"Nonsense." McCullough was saying, "That back there – it was just a hiccup."  
  
Borton gawked at McCullough's perseverance, immediately put off.  
  
"When they opened Disneyland back in the nineteen sixties, nothing worked." McCullough went on.  
  
"Yes, but Errol, there's a difference. If the Pirates of the Caribbean ride breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." Quinn argued, sounding nettled.  
  
"We're fine now." McCullough insisted with a sideways wave of his hand. "They can't all have gone mad."  
  
Borton snorted, announcing her displeasure. McCullough had only just been staring down the gullet of a thirteen-foot tall metal monstrosity. The idea that the Firdos engineers had allowed such a thing to happen with their machines was shocking, but the fact that McCullough still had the audacity to try and stick up for them after two lives had already been lost was utterly mind-boggling. She supposed it must have been his way of dealing with the situation. She pictured her father telling her that it could be worse, and was surprised to find that the image angered her. Really, there was an appropriate time for optimistic denial and this was not it.  
  
"You'll see." McCullough was saying. "We'll get to the lobby, and that lovely woman will be waiting for us. And who knows. We'll probably get double what they were going to pay us to begin with, just to keep us quiet." he suggested. Borton though he sounded crazed. "We'll laugh about this later."  
  
 _Abrams won't_ , Borton thought, and felt her stomach twist.  
  
"I'm going strait to the press the minute I get off this rock. Kid's park my ass. This place needs to be shut the fuck down." Quinn remarked, outrage clear in his voice.  
  
"They won't let you. You signed the disclosure forms. We all did." McCullough reminded him.  
  
"I don't care." Quinn growled, and that was when Borton spotted the dinosaur.  
  
Dull green with a mottling of dark browns and fair reds that extended down it's thick neck. It's skull was rounded and smooth. She recognized it instantly.  
  
Rosie sprang from the grass like a kangaroo, bringing massive hind limbs and long tail curving down on McCullough's right shoulder. He was dragged swiftly to the ground in a brutal lurch. Irvine screamed, shocked, as McCullough bucked and tossed beneath the heavy lizard, unable to roll away.  
  
Before Borton had a chance to react Quinn was rushing at the grappling pair with a branch the size of a baseball bat held at a distance – ready to swing. By then Rosie had McCullough by the throat and was slashing at his face with blunt claws. McCullough's wrists were up in a kind of feeble defense-posture, and his legs kicked under the drooping tail with ferocious force. He was trying desperately to wrestle the dinosaur off of himself, and failing. Another swipe of it's wrist and McCullough gasped as worn nails carved unexpectedly into the skin of his nose. Borton winced, unable to look away. Beside her, Irvine hopped on his toes and pulled at his hair, panicking.  
  
It took five consecutive hits with the tree branch for Quinn to remove Rosie from McCullough's abdomen, and after that, a single blow directly to the head to get the robot to stop thrashing.  
  
McCullough scrambled to his feet, gulping for air. His face was a red mess, and while the scratches weren't deep, his appearance was startling all the same.  
  
"Thank you." he said to Quinn.  
  
Trembling, Quinn nodded, branch still in hand. Beside him on the ground, Rosie was twitching and jerking in the dust. Borton saw where the robot's rubber hide had been split open. The twisted, ruined wiring just under the surface was smoking, and she could smell the faint odor of melting plastic. Rosie gave a final, stuttering shake and went limp.  
  
The group continued on their way, and Borton was both saddened, and slightly thankful to learn that two near-death experiences was apparently the number required to mute McCullough's (almost offensively) positive outlook. When they got to the river she helped him over to a puddle of fresh water and, using the Q-tips and mouthwash from her hotel room, began to rinse his cuts clean.  
  
McCullough cringed, but did not pull away.  
  
"Stings." he said, trying not to move his mouth.  
  
A small dip of her eyes was enough to convey her apology.  
  
"But on the bright side, I'll smell minty fresh, won't I." he joked.  
  
She didn't smile back, and wet a bit of toilet paper in the puddle. Mindful of his discomfort, she began to dab the mouthwash off. With any luck, he wouldn't get an infection.  
  
"Sorry." he said eventually, causing her to stop and stare. "I only thought . . . Your Tom. He saved us."  
  
"Yes." Borton acknowledged, and went back to wiping the blood off of his nose. Her mind went skipping back to Rosie, and then on to Irvine's guide. She pictured them lying broken and ruined on the ground. She thought of Thomas, crunched between the teeth of the tyrannosaurus, like a mouse caught in a trap.  
  
She shook her head. She couldn't allow herself to become preoccupied with worrying about Thomas. There would be time for that later, hopefully.  
  
"I figured, if he was all right, then what you saw – Henry – _Abrams_. Those must be isolated incidents." McCullough clarified.  
  
"I don't think it's a good idea to jump to any conclusions right now." Borton told him frankly. "Nobody knows what's happening. And even if it's only a handful of the robots that have, I don't know, malfunctioned, we're still in danger here."  
  
She hated having to admit it. This was supposed to be her vacation, but somehow it had transformed into something hideous and vile. The reality was painful to face, but she had to. It wouldn't go away if she chose to ignore it.  
  
"I just don't get it." McCullough lamented. "Why are they acting this way? Why only a few, and not all? I don't understand what's happening to them."  
  
Borton frowned.  
  
"They're complex. You spoke about artificial intelligence. Tom is – was – _is_ self aware." she decided. "Maybe that's got something to do with it."  
  
"Doubtful. They're years away from that, remember." McCullough reminded her. "There's no way he could actually be self aware."

Borton chose not to debate him on the subject.  
  
"Well then maybe it's got to do with the fact that they weren't all built the same." she said.  
  
McCullough raised his head sharply, knocking her hand away – "What are you talking about?"  
  
"The man I met with, before I came here. He told me that the first batch of animatronic dinosaurs were programed individually, and that the engineers had to redesign their personality templates to do it. He said that the rest of them would get their personalities from the master computer once the first batch was good and working." Borton told him, hoping her explanation made sense.  
  
"Christ. Computers programming computers. No wonder they're going funny. God damn it. What kind of half-assed operation are they running here?" McCullough said with a bitter chuckle.  
  
Meanwhile, Irvine and Quinn stood by the riverbank, discussing the group's navigation.  
  
"Why are we here? We weren't anywhere near the river when we came in." Irvine was saying.  
  
Quinn was turned away from him, his eyes on the opposite bank. He poised the branch in front of him like a cane and leaned forward, studying the landscape as best he could through the fog.  
  
"We're lost. Aren't we." Irvine said, sounding miserable. In between words he would scratch at the bandage on his opposite hand. The compy bite had already scabbed over, and it itched.  
  
"Be quiet. I'm trying to figure out which is the safest way to go from here." Quinn said through gritted teeth.  
  
"None of it's safe. The woods are infested with giant killer robots and we're lost."  
  
Quinn turned to Irvine and, placing two palms firmly on his shoulders, said "Henry, you have got to keep it together for me, man. Calm the hell down."  
  
"I'm calm. I'm fine, I'm calm. I just want to leave. You said we had to leave and so I want to leave. I left the hotel, I did what you said, and I want to keep going. That's all. I just want to leave." Irvine rambled.  
  
"Henry, we're almost out. I took us this way because I was trying to find the herbivore trail. We get on that, and what are the odds they'll attack us then?"  
  
"Errol's guide was a herbivore. So was mine." Irvine pointed out, "And what about that spitting lizard? From day one those things didn't follow the damn trails. The meat-eaters could be anywhere right now."  
  
Quinn gruntedd angrily, growing impatient.  
  
"Look." he said, tone clipped, "The river flows away from the hotel, yeah? And all trails lead to the river, I think. So, we follow the river going the opposite way until we get on the right path and then, boom. We're out of here."  
  
McCullough came up behind them.  
  
"I'm good to go when you are." he announced. His face was still bleeding, but at the very least the wounds had been washed.  
  
Borton remained by the puddle. Kneeling over it, she put her cupped hands into the water and let it fill them until she was satisfied. She scrubbed her hands and then lifted her wet, bedraggled hair over her shirt collar to get it off of her neck. Somehow it had come undone, she couldn't say precisely when. She felt for the band and found it wasn't there. She sighed, more frustrated than anything, and then stilled when she noticed the ripples dancing in the puddle. Soon, the others could hear the noise as well.  
  
"Jesus." whispered Irvine. "It's a big one. It's the T-rex."  
  
"Maybe not." said McCullough. Irvine wouldn't listen.  
  
"It's coming back. Oh god, it followed us. It's coming after us."  
  
"Of course." Quinn laughed scornfully. "T-rex wants to hunt."  
  
"B-But how? How the hell could it follow us!" Irvine howled, on the verge of hysterics.  
  
"We're hidden. It can't find us." McCullough interrupted, shaking slightly. "Their vision's based on movement. Jo said so. Right?" he added, turning to Borton.  
  
"I don't know anymore." Borton muttered feebly, standing up. "I thought so at first, but the way that thing went for Abrams . . . And there are cameras out here. If the robots still have power, then maybe they're all patched in. The T-rex could know where we are anyway." she added, unenthusiastic.  
  
"Maybe your guide is leading it to us." Irvine implied with a sneer, and Borton mused over how much he might benefit from an elbow smash directly to the nose.  
  
"What side is it on? Can you tell? I say we cross the river. That thing would sink to the bottom like a stone." Quinn suggested.  
  
"It would, yes, but you're forgetting one thing. The river's got a population too. And I'd rather not have my legs torn off by Nessy just now." McCullough retorted.  
  
"What then? The T-rex comes and eats us all?" Irvine asked in total despair.  
  
"Run for it." Borton proposed.  
  
The sound of heavy stomping was still distant, but rather than risk finding out if the path they had chosen crossed with the approaching tyrannosaur's, the group fled down-river and eventually came to a bend that took them past a swamp. The same one they had originally encountered during the first part of the tour. Thankfully, it was devoid of many of the dinosaurs they had seen there, but the insects swarmed them every step of the way through.  
  
Before long, they found themselves on the right road, and in a matter of minutes they arrived in front of the lobby.  
  
McCullough was first to the doors, disregarding any surrounding danger and racing into the open clearing and up the large, stone steps. But as he neared them he skittered to a halt.  
  
"What's the matter?" Quinn called up to him.  
  
"Power's out here, too." McCullough answered.  
  
Borton recalled watching the large, electric doors part so that they could walk carelessly through them on their way into the jungle. Now, as McCullough jumped wildly in front of them, the doors remained perfectly motionless.  
  
McCullough stepped forward until he was pressed up against one of the doors, and tried to pry it open with only his fingers.  
  
"Damn." he puffed, grip slackening. "They're sealed shut from the inside."  
  
"Oh god." Irvine railed.  
  
"Move over." Quinn said, raising the tree branch. "We'll bust through them, damn it all to hell."  
  
Borton rubbed her temples, exhausted. What time was it? Still morning. She hadn't eaten, and her stomach felt hollow. There was a rustling in the canopy above her as a trio of what she imagined must have been birds took off flying. Then came the piercing scream of the criorhynchus. Whipping around, she instantly caught sight of it, crashing beak-first through the branches of the canopy in a dive-bomb attack.  
  
"Duck!" McCullough screamed, pointing.  
  
Borton dove aside to avoid the pair of swiping talons as they skimmed her back. In an instant she was on the ground, dust kicking up around her, and she felt the wind gust over her as the creature twisted in midair and arced to land in the bushes only a meter away. From there, it reared it's self up onto the backs of it's wrists and bounced speedily forward, as if walking with crutches. Borton struggled to her knees. The criorhynchus was in the process of hobbling toward her. Her face twisted into a half-smile at the bazaar sight. The criorhynchus looked ridiculous with it's lengthy, eight and a half foot wing span curled up against it's inflated ribs, crawling through the leaves like some rabid bat.  
  
As it came closer it's narrow jaws opened and closed in a succession of crowing snaps, an action that was designed to intimidate. Borton couldn't decide whether to laugh or scream. Instead, she glanced past it's teeth to where McCullough was going down the steps in hurried leaps. It looked as though he meant to prevent the dinosaur from reaching her.  
  
She hollered "Stay down!"  
  
The criorhynchus spun and jutted forward, serrated beak slicing through the air and grazing McCullough's shin.  
  
By then, Borton was already back on her feet and dashing toward the doors. Quinn darted past her with the tree branch and swung it in a wide circle around his head, advancing on the vicious robot. Before he could land a blow, the criorhynchus unfurled it's wings and took off, perching some six or seven feet over them on the side of a tree. It flapped several times and pushed back off of the trunk, leaving deep slices in the bark, and descended again in an awkward hover.  
  
"Get those doors open! We have to get inside!" Quinn roared, and chased after it, swinging the branch like a lunatic and trying to swat it out of the sky.  
  
The others did as they were told, and together began searching for some sort of mechanical release that would allow them to open the door. Irvine traced the outline of the doors with his fingers while McCullough tried (with little success) to yank the hinges off the walls. Unsure of what else to do, Borton withdrew the nail-file from her pocket and slid it along the crease where she imagined  the electric lock must be, praying for a static charge. But she soon discovered that the locks were magnetic when the file wound up sticking in the tiny entrance.  
  
"Shit.” McCullough breathed, overcome. "It's no use."  
  
Borton glanced back to see the criorhynchus curve it's neck down like a swan, long skull hanging low, and grab the extended branch. For a moment Quinn had the monster on a type of leash, struggling to keep hold of the branch like a child fighting with a truant kite caught by a mighty gust. The scene was almost comical, but then the criorhynchus seemed to regain control, and Quinn was dragged across the floor of the clearing by the balls of his feet. When he hit the upturned root he was sent careening face-first into a dirt mound, and the branch was torn right out of his hands. The criorhynchus tossed it aside with an angry squawk and vanished into the treetops.  
  
"Is it gone?" McCullough called from the stone steps of the lobby.  
  
Quinn struggled to his feet, the front of his shirt splattered with mud. After retrieving the branch he jogged over to them, gasping and sweaty. He was blatantly shaken, but still in one piece.  
  
"Dunno." he said, hands on his legs to keep himself upright. "Any luck with the doors?"  
  
McCullough shook his head.  
  
At the same time, Irvine was doing a distraught little dance. He kept peering up at the trees and wiping his head around. “If there are cameras then that means the workers see us, right? Why don’t they get the power back on and let us in?”  
  
"Maybe there's a window we can break." Quinn said, and the four of them spread out to look.  
  
Borton came around to the corner of the lobby exterior. Staring up, she saw a single, small window. Just big enough to fit through.  
  
"Found one."  
  
"Bathroom, maybe?" McCullough said as he rounded her.  
  
"Somebody, get a rock." Quinn commanded. "We're gonna have to try and climb.”  
  
Borton dropped to her knees and started clawing at the dirt, trying to find a rock big enough to sufficiently shatter the windowpane. All she could see were pebbles. Above them, the criorhynchus screeched. She craned her head back and saw the dinosaur angle it's wings. It began to fall, plummeting out of the sky like a falcon towards them.  
  
Irvine's voice was shrill with terror.  
  
"Hurry!”  
  
For Borton, times of intense stress felt similar to being a passenger aboard some kind of manic train. At the moment, she felt like she was speeding toward a calamitous chasm where the bridge had fallen away. Even standing still, like she was, she continued to get the impression that she was about to plunge headlong into unknown depths.  
  
Slowly, she inhaled, and was a little steadier.    
  
Borton prided herself on her remarkable capacity to function well under pressure. A childhood spent growing up on hectic film sets had given her a curious appreciation for methodical speed, and taught her to keep calm while being rushed. To move quickly, but not inefficiently. To take deep breaths, ignore the chaos around her, and stay focused on a single end goal.  
  
She had dealt with impractical deadlines and impatient directors, and she had done it all with level-headed tact. Even when she'd come across the allosaurus, she had reacted in a rational way. She had sought out an end goal (get to the phone) and made it happen. The same thing had happened with the tyrannosaurus. She had swallowed her panic and had enough forethought to rummage her room for supplies prior to fleeing.  
  
Her father had always demonstrated the same knack for sensibility and provisional planning in the face of a crisis, but contrary to popular belief, Borton had not inherited this particular talent. She had learned it the way most people do – through simple experience – and perfected it over many instances of trial and error. A unique example of her true ability to adapt.  
  
Borton was adapting now. Presently, her end goal was escape out of the Prehistoric-realm. By nature she was a visual person, and her father had consistently reminded her of the reality that, if she could imagine it, then odds were she could probably make it happen. Her father had usually meant this in the sense of fast production. But Borton found the concept could be applied to nearly any harsh situation.  
  
As she hunted for a way to break the window (ever aware of the time), she held an image of her current goal securely frozen in her mind, confident that she could reach it. She sat on the train as the chasm approached, a part now played by the criorhynchus, and while she acknowledged the danger, she also chose to press on carefully, in spite of it.  
  
All at once she spotted something. Hidden by a pair of large ferns, it looked like a cross between a manhole and a submarine door. A sawyer's hatch. It was half-buried by a thin layer of sand.  
  
A tiny voice rang in her head, composed and stable.  
  
 _Emergency exit._  
  
She dove headfirst into the leaves, grasping at the steering-wheel shaped handle. In a frenzy she began to turn it, straining against the stubborn metal until she finally felt it give. The manhole slid aside with a long metal scrape, and she had only a second's worth of time to glance over the edge. Below was a tunnel leading down into blackness. Small slabs of curved metal decorated one side of the smooth shaft. Caution fought with the terrible need to get somewhere –  _anywhere_ – safe, and Borton made her decision there and then.  
  
The criorhynchus struck the ground four and a half feet away, and sprang up, landing in a snag of vines and cracking a branch in half with it's wing. Dropping back down, it did a somersault, and became tangled when it's foot became trapped in a hollow log. This prevented it's coming immediately closer, and in that split second before it managed to free its foot, Borton fitted herself down the hole and began to descend.  
  
In flight, the criorhynchus was indistinct, and the dimples on the shapely convex crest that decorated it's snout were almost impossible to see. As this distance, however, Borton found that she was free to study them in detail. She took one final glance, admiring the craftsmanship of the robot, and then dunked her head down past the edge of the tunnel's opening.  
  
Quinn and the others were right behind her, lining up to stuff themselves into the narrow shoot. By the time the criorhynchus was able to get to them, they were secure beneath the ground. The criorhynchus squealed and dug at the hole, trying to widen it. In it's fury it slammed it's beak against the slab of unseen concrete and came away dented. After that, it took off again.     
  
In the climb down, Borton found that everything was amplified. She was babbling inside her own head as each insignificant detail was previewed with renewed scrutiny. The slick of her own sweat on the metal bars as she touched them ( _don't slip you'll fall break your neck_ ), the huff of her labored breathing (c _atch it relax be careful don't make a mistake go at your own pace_ ), the speed at which the others were coming down on top of her ( _hurry faster they'll knock you off_ ), exactly how long the tunnel was ( _miles we'll climb forever it's like alice in wonderland down the rabbit hole we go_ ). By the time she got to the bottom, she was disoriented from over-thinking.  


 

* * *

  
  
The control level of Firdos was on the bottom floor of the park, entirely buried in the earth. Borton reached it flushed from her swift climb down the ladder. She let her eyes adjust to the dark. Pale blue flood-lights brought the floor and corners where wall met low ceiling into dim focus, and right away Borton got the impression of being trapped at the bottom of some crypt. She willed herself to try and relax.  
  
 _Safe now, you're safe._  
  
Borton checked herself over. She was shaking, but beyond that, she was in one piece. Her hands dropped to her sides, fingers flexing and curling into fists, and she paced a circle – once, twice, trying to walk the last of the adrenaline off. There was so much to react to, she didn't know where to begin. Her heart was playing a rock-and-roll drum solo in her chest.  
  
Abrams was dead. Two of the guides were broken.  
  
 _No. Three. There's no way that Thomas could have –_  
  
Borton stopped herself. The emotional power of the thought alone was so overwhelming that she felt it like a physical blow.  She withdrew from the mental picture, and felt the grief and the fear and the bewildering tension slink away to make room for her calmer, more rational thinking. Slowly, her pulse returned to a near-normal pace, and Borton became coherent enough to take a sharper look around.  
  
She wasn't entirely sure what she had expected to see, but it certainly wasn't this. The hallways were vastly empty, and despite being out of danger, the feeling that something was wrong remained, amplified by her oddly vacant surroundings. She wondered how far under ground they were, if the pressure was any different. All at once she felt cut off, and that unnerved her more than anything else she'd experienced that morning.  
  
"Where is everybody?" she questioned aloud, staring blankly down the corridor. By then the others were at the bottom of the ladder, standing there with her. "Shouldn't we be seeing, I don't know, engineers or something? Security personnel?"  
  
"Maybe they're busy trying to get control of the dinosaurs." McCullough proposed. Somehow, Borton didn't think that was the case.  
  
Irvine's voice was almost inaudible in it's terrified whisper – "The power's out down here, too?"  
  
"Apparently." McCullough said.  
  
"W-Why would it be out down here, too?" he squeaked.  
  
"Could be that a storm's hit us. You know? Like a hurricane. Might have fried the system or something." McCullough suggested.  
  
"No. There are protocols in place for an event like that." Borton explained, remembering what Thomas had told her earlier. "If a storm hits, the robots start helping people evacuate. Not . . ."  
  
Her voice trailed off, and there was a long pause.  
  
"We need to try and find somebody." Quinn said at last. "I mean, we've got an injured man, here."  
  
"I'm fine. Honestly, I am." McCullough insisted.   
  
"It's dark." Irvine was saying. Borton could hear his breathing. It was ragged. "Oh god. It's dark. I have to get out of here. I have to get out!"  
  
Borton listened as each breath became faster and faster until she finally realized –  
  
 _God, he's hyperventilating._  
  
Borton watched Irvine recoil and try to scurry back up the ladder. In the next instant McCullough had his hands around Irvine's ankles and was pulling him back down until they were facing one another.  
  
"Relax, Henry. It's fine. Everything's fine now. We'll be all right." McCullough told him.  
  
Irvine's reaction was visceral.  
  
"No we won’t,” he screamed, eyes red and running. “We're never going to be all right!"  
  
He shoved McCullough away and fell to his knees, scrambling back until he was against the wall like a cornered mouse, and began to sob. The others watched him, saying nothing.  
  
"Let me out of here Jesus God please let me out this isn't happening!"  
  
Huddled in on himself, Irvine wept like a frightened child, shivering and rocking on his hips. He hid his face under his arms, a useless gesture as they could still see him well enough to judge. Although she sympathized with him, even identified (to a degree) a small part of Borton thought he looked pathetic. She chose to ignore this opinion and repress her awareness of it, too preoccupied to rail herself for her own harshness. She focused instead on the gasping, sniveling sounds Irvine was making. They were carried down the hallway on an echo. Drawn out and miserable.  
  
Finally, when it had gone on long enough, Quinn stepped forward to intervene. He bent over the hysterical man and, grabbing a fist full of his shirt collar, hauled him forcefully to his feet. Irvine shrieked and tried to claw himself free, pummeling weakly against Quinn’s hands. It did no good, he couldn't get away. Quinn brought his hand up and slapped him. The sound of skin smacking skin was very loud, and all at once Irvine stopped trying to wriggle free and simply stood there, a limp, silent shell.  
  
Quinn didn’t have to say anything. Irvine knew what had to happen. They all knew. Borton felt a light dampness trailing down her cheeks. She remained strangely indifferent to it, to him, to the situation. She wasn't sure which was worse. Getting upset, or remaining like that. Cold. Something else to repress. She wiped her cheeks clean.  
  
When Irvine’s breathing had slowed, he was handed off to McCullough, who continued to reassure him – whispering things like “You're fine now.” and “We're safe.” Borton found it vaguely funny, the two of them sat down together like that, Irvine with the big black bruises from where his guide had hit him, and McCullough with a face covered in fresh scratches from Rosie. One of them crying, one of them trying to provide some semblance of comfort to the other. Borton decided that, of the two, she admired McCullough more so, mainly for his ability to keep so collected in spite of it all. Borton found she preferred his obnoxious optimism to Irvine's gutting outburst.  
  
As things grew quieter, Quinn pulled Borton aside.  
  
"I need to talk to you."  
  
Quinn was still clutching the tree branch, and he talked in low whispers, keeping Irvine and McCullough in his peripherals.  
  
"I’ve been thinking. What if this doesn’t end up there, with the dinosaurs?”  
  
"Not sure I follow.” Borton lied.  
  
"This might go further.” Quinn hinted. “Could it? I’m asking you as a professional. Could the other realms be this crazy, do you think?”  
  
Borton considered for a moment. She didn’t dare connect the absence of employees with the possibility that all four realms were somehow on the fritz.  
  
"We shouldn't jump to concl–"  
  
"Cut the crap. There's nobody down here. Don't you think that's a little strange, Jo? I mean, would you operate like this in an emergency?"  
  
Borton put her hands to her temples, tired, hungry and confused.  
  
"No. Maybe. I don't know. The Prehistoric-realm could have been a fluke." she rationalized. "Because of the testing. The robots weren't – they were built using new methods. I think. I don't know for sure. I don't have the facts."  
  
"So you're saying that the chances of something like this happening in the older, tested realms are pretty slim.”  
  
"I'd imagine so. But that's a guess. Just a guess. I know as much as you do." she sighed.  
  
Quinn glared at her a moment and then seemed to relax.  
  
"We need to find some one." he said.  
  
A sudden, sharp clang made them both jump. Borton lifted her face to the ceiling and held her breath. A long pause, and then another clang, louder than the first. It sounded as though someone was pounding on the metal hatch just above their heads.  
  
"The flying one again? Or the T-rex – trying to get in?" McCullough asked Quinn, as if his being a paleontologist might grant him some type of insight as to which it might be.  
  
"They're both pretty big. And neither has the arms to open that thing." Quinn assured him. "Even if they break through, they wouldn't be able to get down here. That pipe's pure concrete. They'd get stuck first."  
   
Next came the unmistakable noise of metal twisting against metal, and then the hatch creaked open. Sunlight flooded the narrow space directly below the ladder. Borton raised her hand over her forehead to blot it out, stars dancing in her eyes, and a second later a dark figure – small and lean – fell through the opening and landed with a sick thud on the pavement below, just in front of her. She staggered backward, crossing in front of Quinn who was at her side with the branch, ready to swing.  
  
Borton blocked the figure – "Wait."  
  
Thomas lay motionless at her feet, as remote from her as when she had first gone to turn him on. The group crowded around the raptor in a semi-circle, expressions of shock and beguilement on each of their faces.  
  
Borton's mind raced. _Is he awake? Did the fall knock him out? Please god don't let him be broken._  
  
"Tom?" she said aloud, voice steady. No movement from the robot. Gingerly, she squatted over the his head to inspect it for injuries.  
  
"Don't!" Irvine bellowed. "He's one of them!"  
  
"He saved our lives." Borton commented quietly, but to be safe, she nodded for Quinn to step closer – just in case.  
  
She turned her attention to Thomas and saw that his hide had been lightly ripped along the back and neck, probably from where he's smashed into a bough or two during the chase through the brush, and Borton could see faint splashes of red trailing down his ribcage. For a moment her thoughts jumbled.  
  
 _He's real he's real he's bleeding really bleeding –_  
  
But then she remembered that nearly all of the Firdos robots had been built with fake blood, to make the experience of killing one more realistic. The dinosaurs appeared to have been constructed in the same way. She dipped a finger in the crimson liquid and swiped a drop across the tip of her tongue.  
  
"Fake." she whispered, relieved.  
  
"Is he all right?" she heard McCullough ask over her shoulder.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
She put on her best professional special effects artist voice, and let her observation do the talking.  
  
"Tail's bent slightly, he's got a few cuts." she told them, pointing. "But I think he's more or less okay. Physically speaking." she added with a frown. "Don't know what he's like on the inside. There could be a rupture in the battery, so we'd be looking at acidic contamination. Or a collapse of the cooling system. That would affect his motor skills. I don't have the equipment, or the light, to check really."  
  
"That's a point." McCullough remarked, and climbed over her to get at the ladder. When he was at the top, he pulled the hatch to and tightened the wheel around until it was properly closed again.  
  
"Let's have no more party crashers, yeah?" he panted, climbing back down to join them.  
  
Meanwhile, Borton was carefully poking and prodding the torso of the raptor, feeling for any signs of internal damage. The diminished light would have made the job impossible for some one inexperienced. Borton was managing fine.   
  
When her eyes had readjusted, she leaned over the raptor's arms and pressed on the wrists with her palms. The joints were still intact, and it didn't feel like the gears were loose. She traced the indent of one elbow to the shoulder and back down again to the tip of his claws with a touch that was almost intimate. Closer examination revealed that he was clutching something in one hand, and when she hesitantly peeled his slackened digits back to uncover it, she saw that the item was none other than her baseball cap. She concluded that he must have gone back to retrieve it for her, once he'd lost the tyrannosaur in the jungle.  
  
"You big leather turkey." she muttered, dusting the cap on her pant leg and placing it back on her head.  
  
The vigor Thomas must have used to evade the tyrannosaurus and track her all the way to the man-hole was certainly impressive, but he seemed devoid of further energy now. She was sure he had suffered a fatal wound when he tumbled into the darkness to meet her. Processor split, perhaps, or the breaking of the connection between the main power source and the central motors.  
  
"I think he's finished." she announced, doleful.  
  
"Shame." McCullough commented. "I liked him."  
  
Thomas sprang awake. Borton hadn't been expecting it. In the back of her mind she had sensibly, yet sadly postulated that he would never rouse again – so when he did, her first reaction was to scream.  
  
Quinn brought the branch down in a flash. Thomas leapt back and skittered off to the side, the butt of the branch missing him by inches. It struck the floor and broke in two, leaving Quinn and the others gawking. Borton was on her feet and approaching, hands raised out inoffensively.  
  
"Tom? Can you hear me?"  
  
She was a tight bundle of apprehension and relief. He was okay. No, he was _functional_ , but she had to be sure it was still him. She had to figure out a way of checking.  
  
"Tom? Do you know who I am?"  
  
A birdlike tic of his head, and Thomas' eyes snapped to hers. His expression was impassive, just as it had been during the game of hide and seek they're shared together. Borton tried to think. What could she do to snap him out of it?  
  
"I am the monarch of the sea." she suddenly sang. "The ruler of the Queen's Nav-ee. Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants . . ."  
  
"What are you doing?" Irvine hissed.  
  
She gave no sign that she'd heard him, and went on reciting the lyrics.  
  
"Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants? Come on, Tom. You know this. Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants –"  
  
The hallway was abruptly filled with Thomas' off-key crooning.  
  
" _And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts! And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!_ "  
  
Silence.  
  
"Tom?" Borton asked, uneasy. She stepped a little closer. "You with me now, buddy?"  
  
She saw his eyes widen, bright and clear and lucid.  
  
"Hello, Joanna. I apologize for my volume." said Thomas, gentle and polite as always.  
  
Never before had she invested quite so much emotion in a robot that she hadn't built herself. Not even Irvine's distraught protests could stop her from crossing to Thomas and throwing her arms around him in a tight hug.  
  
"Hey, buddy, hey. You all right, yeah? I never thought I'd see you again." she revealed, shocked by how easily the words came out of her. She knew the men were all watching. Let them watch – and let them think she was absolutely insane, fawning over a machine. Just then, she didn't care what they thought.  
  
Thomas returned the embrace with his soft, gangly-armed grip, and afterward, as he broke away from her he said "I am very happy to see you safe, Joanna."  
  
"Me too, buddy. Thanks."  
  
"Yes, thank you." McCullough interjected, respectful.  
  
"Tom, do you know where we can find somebody down here?" Borton asked.  
  
"I would be delighted to direct you to the nearest member of the Firdos staff. Please follow m–"  
  
"N-Not on your life." Irvine sputtered. "Have you people all lost your d-damn minds? It's _one of them_. It's another robot."  
  
"Henry," Borton started.  
  
"No – No you'll protect it because you've formed an attachment to it."  
  
"He's fine, Henry." McCullough argued. "Look at him. Does he look like he wants to attack us?"  
  
"My guide didn't look like it wanted to attack me until it _did_ , Errol. And what about your guide? What about Rosie? Sure, that thing – " and he pointed at Thomas " – is acting fine now. But it could turn at any second. I guarantee it. It could go off on us right now if it wanted to. Do you see those claws? There, on it's feet. What did you say those were for?" he questioned, looking at Quinn.  
  
Quinn's brow furrowed. "Tearing. Evisceration."  
  
"We can't trust it." Irvine urged. "It's just like the others."  
  
"Tom hasn't shown any signs of violence." Borton asserted. "Even before this, the worst he wanted to do was play hide and seek."  
  
"Maybe those are the first symptoms, though. You don't know how it works. You even said so, up there. Whatever it is, it could affect the robots differently, at different times. He could go downhill. Are you willing to take that risk?"  
  
Borton shut her eyes and thought about it.  
  
"Fine." she said, acknowledging Irvine's concerns. "We bring him with us, he'll take us to somebody. If he goes crazy, we have the means to protect ourselves." and she gave a small gesture to Quinn's tree branch. She felt awful doing it. Part of her wanted to believe that Thomas was untouched by the aggression that plagued the other dinosaurs. But logically, she had no real way of telling.  
  
"It's settled then." Quinn declared. "Tom, you're gonna help us find some one. Some one in charge. And we're gonna get the low down on what the hell's going on around here."  
  
Thomas barked an energetic reply, "This way, please," and dashed halfway down the corridor, stopping and spinning on his heel to make sure the others were right behind him. Quinn took up the larger half of the broken branch and paced after him, McCullough in his wake. Irvine rose to his feet, looking edgy and suspicious. Borton was surprised when Irvine didn't elect to stay behind. She assumed that he must have preferred the company of the group over the idea of sitting by himself in the dark, waiting. Borton walked beside him as the group caught up with Thomas.  
  
"You okay, Henry?" she ventured.  
  
"It could lead us into a trap." he muttered.  
  
"Not down here. We can trust him. And besides, there's no dinosaurs down here. Well, besides Tom. Nothing's going to try and get us. We're perfectly safe now." she said, knowing that it wouldn't convince him either way. Still, with Thomas back, a small sense of safety was returning. At least, for her.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dinosaurs mentioned:
> 
> \- criorhynchus (sometimes called ornithocheirus, though not in this story)
> 
> \- stegoceras (called Rosie, she is McCulloiugh's guide, although she isn't mentioned by dinosaur name specifically in this chapter)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Borton and the other survivors of the Prehistoric-realm encounter one of the few remaining Firdos technicians. Meanwhile, a crucial problem occurs with Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this update took FOREVER and I really am horribly sorry. Please let me explain. Mostly, it was work. But also, I wound up combining chapters 15 and 16 to make it longer (and hopefully push the story along more quickly). The next update shouldn't take me as long to put up, provided work doesn't get in the way again, but we'll see. Anywho, hope you enjoy it and reminder that comments and criticisms are welcome!
> 
> Random fun fact: So a large portion of this is a direct reference to the events of West World, and one of the characters is even modeled off of Yul Brynner himself (try to guess which one). I also re-introduce a new robot character here, along with a previously established technician character, both of whom were briefly mentioned in chapter 6. They're also both modeled on famous actors I happen to like (no really, points if you can guess who they are too). And there's even some emotional Tom the velociraptor thrown in for good measure. 
> 
> Note: So yeah, I don't know about electronic ohm measurement and that, though I did do a pinch of research on it. But if anything's incorrect there, do let me know and I can change it. Either that or continue to suspend your disbelief.

_. . . Tuesday: 9:23 am . . ._  
  
  
The pocket-sized electrometer was a composite of routine parts. Mostly spare pieces and scrap bits that repairman Eddie Cook had collected from decommissioned robots during his four and a half year-long career at Firdos. One of Cook's best qualities was never letting anything go to waste. Cook's mother, a road mechanic, had taught him that all things could be recycled. Everything was salvageable, and so Cook grew up capable of using whatever was handy – an especially useful talent in times of crisis.  
  
Cook had constructed the electrometer using only the common-place tools he carried with him on his utility belt. His access to the more sophisticated gadgets was limited now that the repair bay was locked, and in the end the electrometer had come out looking like a makeshift calculator. But it worked, and that was the important thing. Cook had built the small device to serve a purpose, and it's appearance didn't concern him. What did concern him was that it accurately measured voltage, charge, resistance and current. It did this by means of "voltage balancing", in which the input voltage was compared with an internal reference voltage source using an electronic circuit with a very high input impedance. Anything beyond the order of 1014 ohms would ultimately set it off. And in this case, induction or physical contact was not necessary. Cook had been built the electrometer with the ability to pick up electrical discharge through air fluctuation – and to search for a very unique type of voltage signal, one that belonged to a specific type of machine.  
  
Granted, this method of detection was far less refined than what he was used to. In fact, Cook had never had to detect robots on his own before.  
  
But the day was far from ordinary, and Cook was winging it.  
  
If the Firdos system had still been up and running, things would have been going much differently for Cook. By this time, he would have started his morning rounds. The wireless radio clipped to his back pant pocket would have been buzzing with news of fresh problems, and he would have been relying on the control room technicians to alert him of the specifics. They would have given him the necessary details, along with the exact location of the malfunctioning robot (or error in question), and off he would have gone – from one assigned task to the next until the day was over.   
  
Unfortunately, with the power out, and most of the control room technicians not responding, Cook did not have the luxury of being told where the robots were. He was forced to depend on the crude electrometer for protection. If he was within a hundred feet of a working Firdos robot, the electrometer would emit a sharp shrieking sound, like an angry cricket, and warn Cook of the impending attack.  
  
It was doing that now. Shrieking and dancing on the floor beside him. At first, Cook ignored it, intently focused on the wall panel just in front of him. He had already removed the security badge scanner and was working on rerouting the lock charges to run on the backup power supply. If properly done, he would gain entrance to the control room, and from there, the computers that could reboot the system. Of course, he was only a repairman. He didn't have the background training or the official qualifications of a _true_ Firdos technician, and he was less than familiar with the control room computers. But he had a basic idea of what he would have to do once he got inside, and that was enough to motivate him.  
  
Cook had almost finished bypassing the door's primary locking mechanism when he finally noticed the electrometer's alarm. Picking it up, he saw from the miniature screen that something was approaching. Cook had been smart enough to install a kind of radar feature in the device, and on it the robot's signal was represented by a flashing circle of yellow light, moving blip by blip down an outlined map of corridors, towards his position on the grid. Cook switched the electrometer's volume level to silent and listened.  
  
He could hear the distant reverberation of talking voices, and the quiet tapping of shoes on the stone floor. More than one robot, he reckoned. But the electrometer was only reading a single electric signature. Cook tapped it's screen – no change. He shook it. Still no change. Carefully, Cook's fingers slipped down past his hip and curled around the home-made cattle-prod he'd slapped together in the ensuing hysteria that came with the power outage. It was dangling from the improvised notch he'd added to his utility belt. Gently, he flicked the dial around and heard the cattle-prod spark to life.  
  
It didn't matter how many robots there were. One thing was for certain. They were coming his way, and when they got there, he would be ready for them.  
  


* * *

  
Borton had been walking for a good fifteen minutes, and so far she had seen absolutely no one else wandering the halls.  
  
In front of her, Thomas guided the group along. His eyes acted like headlights, casting beams of radiant neon-green ahead of him so that the group could find their way more easily. Yet another of his impressive features, it reminded Borton of the Christmas specials she used to watch with her father when she was a child. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer leading the sleigh through a blizzard.  
  
The air was stale and stuffy underground. It was warm, too – a welcome change from the freezing jungle rain. Borton's clothes were already dry, but the heat got her thinking. Logic suggested that there must be a need for air conditioning on the lowest level of Firdos, especially if there were as many computers around as she assumed there might be. And not only that, but what about comfort? She didn't think the employees (if there even were any employees down there) would want it to be too warm while they worked.  
  
At one point she put her ankle across a ventilator by a wall socket and frowned. There was a total lack of noticeable airflow, and that bothered her. Every so often she would break away from the group and try to open one of the nearby doors. The majority were locked, save for a single janitor's closet full of dirty mops.  
  
"To access the offices of Firdos employees, an electronic security badge is required." Thomas clarified, sticking close by to Borton.  
  
 _Understandable_ , though Borton, glancing at an ATM-looking hole in the wall, clearly a kind of swipe-card reader. Shrugging, she fell in line behind Thomas. He seemed to be paying her an extra amount of attention now that they were together again. Apparently, his protective nature had been amplified thanks to the incident with the tyrannosaurus, and Borton could sense his eagerness to keep an eye on her. She let him, just as happy to be reunited as he was. She allowed him to sneak up on her, to linger on her heels, to stalk up behind her. The nearer he got to her, the safer she felt. It was a peculiar sensation, and not one she minded.  
  
After a while the group came across a door marked 'Nakamura: Director of Operations, Engineering and Control'. This time Borton chose to knock, just in case the room was actually occupied. No answer. She twisted the door-handle.  
  
"Nobody home?" McCullough asked as he passed her.  
  
"Yeah, but it makes sense." said Borton. "Why else would you lock an office unless it was empty?"  
  
"Maybe they're all on break." McCullough mused.  
  
"Maybe." Borton agreed. "Think we caught the graveyard shift?"  
  
"On a Tuesday morning? That's a bit of a stretch." McCullough laughed.  
   
"Firdos is able to function with minimum staffing thanks to an abundance of high-tech automation." Thomas notified them from a little ways down the corridor.  
  
"So less people, more machines. Cheaper way of doing it, but kind of dumb in retrospect" Borton surmised, eying the floodlights with moderate disdain.  
  
The group kept moving.  
  
"There's a medical center around here somewhere, right?" Borton said, addressing Thomas.  
  
"That is correct. We are heading there now." Thomas chirped happily. He was the only member of their estranged party she could stand being in high spirits. Cheerful seemed to be the fallback of his per-programmed dispositions, and she was used to it.  
  
"Will we find people at the medical center, do you think?" Borton questioned.  
  
"I believe we will encounter some one shortly." Thomas told her, sounding very confident.  
  
Borton wondered how he could be so sure, but then she remembered their little game of hide and seek in the jungle. It wasn't out of the ordinary to deduce how Thomas had found her so easily. Borton knew that he was equipped with a variety of sensors. He must have been picking up signals and heat signatures the entire time, locking onto them and following the trail like a walking GPS. Borton suspected that he used the same type of resourceful operation to find her at the emergency exit. She was thankful to have such a reliable source of navigation down in the empty tunnels.  
  
They passed another room, this one with a window. Peering in, Borton saw that it was filled with banks of computer servers. She had no way of telling how many there were, or which ones were running. Carefully, she pressed a hand against the surface of the door. It was hot to the touch. With the ventilation out and no way to cool the servers from the inside, soon Firdos' emergency backup systems would begin to shut down as well.  
  
 _And then where will we be?_ she wondered, trying to battle back a growing sense of foreboding. _It's okay. We've got Tom with us again. He'll find somebody, and this will all get taken care of._  
  
Up ahead, Borton thought she could see a light flickering just around the corner.  
  


* * *

  
Cook crouched by the wall, watching the elongated shadows of the advancing robots slither towards him on the floor. The seconds stretched and Cook's grip tightened on the cattle-prod. The robots rounded the corner. There were four of them and – no. Wait. Five. Four human-models and – was that a dinosaur? Yes, next to the woman. One of the new prehistoric bots. He hadn't memorized all the names yet, but he guessed it one of the carnivorous types, judging by the look of it's teeth. He glanced down at it's heavy, clawed toes and stilled, ready with the cattle-prod.  
  
The woman was the first to spot him, and seeing the look of surprise dawn on her face made Cook realize –  
  
She wasn't in costume. None of the robots were.  
  
When guests were brought into the Firdos resort, they were often not dressed appropriately. Very few modern outfits matched the individual environments of the Firdos realms. Usually, guests were given the proper realm-specific costumes upon entering the resort, and their actual clothing was brought down and stored in lockers, to be returned to them when their stay at Firdos was over.  
  
The only reasonable explanation was that these robots had raided one of the lockers, or so Cook discerned.    
  


* * *

  
Borton crossed in front of Thomas and came around the corner.  
  
"Oh –"  
  
She froze. There, kneeling by what looked like an open circuit-box in the wall, was a Firdos employee.  
  
He wore the same white, pajama-like garment she had seen on the technician in the jungle, only his was cleaner. There were no blood stains, only grease and a few small specs of grayish blue. Hydraulic fluid again, Borton guessed. The thin, laminated name-badge pinned to the front of his jumpsuit read Edward Cook. Squinting, Boton saw that he was holding something in his right hand. It was smooth and rusted, and she thought she could hear the faint fizz of electricity coming from it. It had the shape of a soup ladle, but the tip was rectangular and hollowed at the center. He waved it in front of her in a menacing arc.  
  
"Hey. Hey, you there." Borton started, dubious of how to make herself sound. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten him. "Hello?" she tried again, lighter this time.  
  
The technician didn't answer.  
  
"We – uh – We came down from the Prehistoric-realm." she continued. "Something went wrong up there. Listen –"  
  
She felt the pressure of Thomas' snout as he nudged her forward.  
  
From the wall came the voice of the technician, loud and definite. "Hold it!"  
  
She jerked back, startled. "What?"  
  
"Stop right where you are. Don't come any closer." He spoke in a small-town Minnesota dialect, and the singsong quality of his words did little to hide the panic in his voice. "Show me your wrists. Let me see your wrists!" he demanded.  
  
Nobody moved. The technician shook the ladle and Borton gasped as a brilliant ripple of static ran across the surface of it's head like a taser. One by one, each of them raised their wrists up for the technician to examine. After reviewing them he slowly got to his feet.  
  
"You're a guest? You people are guests?" he breathed, astounded.  
  
"We were beta-testing the Prehistoric-realm." McCullough hastily explained. "Why don't you put that thing down, eh?"  
  
McCullough went to take a step forward and the technician thrust the cattle-prod at him. He leapt back with an outraged yelp.  
  
"What about that?" the technician asked them, pointing the cattle-prod at Thomas with clear implication.  
  
"What about him?" McCullough smiled back. Borton thought he sounded just as jumpy as the technician now. The cattle-prod flashed for a second time and sent the stink of burnt ozone wafting through the air.  
  
"Has it hurt any of you?" the technician clarified.  
  
"No." Borton said tersely. "He's all right. We wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for him."  
  
She waited while the technician considered her story.  
  
"You were on the trial for the new level?"  
  
"That's right." she said. "The Prehistoric-realm. Some of the dinosaurs have gon–"  
  
The technician cut her off. "There were supposed to be five of you." It was evident that the accusation in his voice was meant for Thomas.  
  
"One of us didn't make it. The power went out, it started raining. The T-rex, it – Tom, him, he rescued us from the T-rex." Borton replied, and Thomas gave a small bow beside her.  
  
Borton watched as the technician lowered his head and licked his lips. When he looked back up his gaze fell on Thomas first, and then swept across to her. He searched the rest of them, too, expression uncertain.  
  
"He's fine. Honest. He got us out of there." Borton insisted. She couldn't quite grasp his distrust. The way he was acting, it was as if he thought Thomas had taken them all hostage somehow. Ridiculous.  
  
The technician regarded Thomas with suspicious eyes for another minute before finally lowering the cattle-prod. Borton exhaled, shaky. The side of her face ached. The antiseptic saliva that Thomas had coated her with had long since washed away in the rain, and now a mark was forming. Somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that she no longer cared if her vacation ended before it was meant to. Tired, dirty and in pain, she decided she wanted to go home.  
  
After a moment the technician wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, sniffling. "Jesus. You really gave me a scare. Look, everything's broken down. The machines have gone crazy."  
  
"You know about the machines?" Borton balked.  
  
"Yeah, I repair 'em. Name's Eddie. Eddie Cook. God, how did you guys even get down here, anyway?" he marveled. "If the power's out up there then doesn't that means the elevators aren't working?"  
  
"We found the emergency exit. The one by the entrance." Borton replied. She was itching to pick his brain. She wanted to ask him about the robots in the Prehistoric-realm, about their construction, about the possible causes of the programming breakdown. She wanted to know just what in the hell had happened. Irvine beat her to it.  
  
"Why are the dinosaurs trying to – I mean – the T-rex killed Abrams. It went and killed him. Why?" Irvine wailed, voice brittle.  
  
"Not a clue, fella." Cook replied frankly. "But I ought to tell you, it's not just the dinosaurs."  
  
"What?" Irvine sputtered, aghast.  
  
"What do you mean it's not just the dinosaurs?" Quinn gawked.  
  
"I mean it's not just the dinosaurs – it's all the machines, from what I saw." Cook told them grimly.  
  
There was a brief moment of discord as the group expressed their shock, and from there Cook went on to recount the events of the past six hours, revealing what most of the group members already knew.  
  
The park, as it turned out, operated for the most part on a single, over-arcing system. The wireless network controlled everything from individual robot operation, to the automatic-chefs found in each guest's hotel room. The only thing that remained separate from it (to a certain degree) was the control program for the weather – which interconnected to span all four realms. Sometime in the night, the system had experienced a major corruption (at least from what Cook could gather), and when that had happened, everything automated lost it's ability to function, save for the weather. _But even that's playing up now_ , Borton thought as she listened to Cook.  
  
"I was on my over to the repair bay to get a tool when things started going nuts." Cook recalled, face somber. "When I first saw it . . . The repair bay's got these windows, like a car wash. I went right up to them and – and what was happening – the carnage," he gurgled, "It was – Christ, I thought it was a gag or something. There's a lot of violence here at Firdos, you know? That's part of what makes this place fun. But it's all fake. I mean, you work around this place and you sort of get use to it. I thought it was some kind of practical joke at first. Can you believe that? I was, like, talk about bad taste."  
  
Cook exhaled. The scene was still fresh in his head.  
  
Robots and people. Robots killing people. It had been utter chaos. Some of the technicians had defended themselves, using the tools around them as weapons. Cook had seen one coworker take a laser-cutter and jab it strait through a robot's eye. Another – he knew this one well, Patricia Helmway – had been throwing beakers full of acid at every robot she could reach. Even now, Cook could see their metal faces, burning. The image haunted him, their cheeks leaking steam as their rubber skin melted away.  
  
"I didn't do anything. Didn't think I needed to. Far as I was concerned, the whole thing was staged, so I kind of just stood there and watched it go down." Cook told them, dreamy-eyed.  
  
It wasn't until Helmway – short, soft-spoken Helmway – had run out of acid and made a last-ditch effort to cross the repair bay to the doors that Cook had finally realized it wasn't a trick. He had seen the blatant fear on her face, and watched as one of the nearby robots knocked her into an operating table, proceeding to rip a sizable chunk out of her left shoulder-blade with it's bare teeth. After that, Cook had started taking things very seriously.  
  
"Some of the robots in the repair bay were putting on the lab coats they'd stolen off of dying technicians." he recalled, beginning to mime buttoning up his shirt collar. Borton watched as he rolled his sleeves down past the wrists, imitating what the robots had done in order to hide the black stars hidden at the base of the palm. Their give-away marks.  
  
"Did you try to help people?" Borton asked, and Cook hung his head.  
  
"I was panicking. I didn't want to go in. I – I was scared. What could I have done? Me, trying to fight a bunch of robots. I'd have been killed the second I stepped inside." said Cook. "I figured, the best possible route of action would have been to disable the bots completely, but that involved a total shutdown and restart of the system. And you can only do that from the control room."  
  
Cook had waited for it to happen, confident that the men and women working in the control room were aware of the problem, and had already taken action. But the shutdown never came. Not entirely. The lights had flashed and dimmed, and the backup power supply had eventually kicked on, as it was designed to do, but the doors never re-opened. The robots never stopped their massacre.  
  
"All these damn locks." Cook sneered. "They're electronic. Every god damn one."  
  
"You could have smashed the windows." Borton put forward.  
  
"How? I didn't have anything. I mean, maybe my wrench or my hammer, but those windows – they're heavy-duty. The repair bay is a clean room and it's supposed to be air-tight, same as the control room and the server vaults. The windows and the doors are all meant to keep dust particles out. They're pretty much bullet-proof and it would've been impossible for me to break the glass on my own." said Cook.  
  
"But you tried." Borton speculated.  
  
"No. I didn't try." Cook said, glowering spitefully. "The bots did, though. They tried, but they couldn't break the windows either. Thank Christ. I didn't think it was possible for them to function with the power out like that. So far as I can guess, they must've been going on batteries alone. But I don't know how they could keep going, keep thinking without a link to the wireless network."  
  
"What happened to the people in the repair bay?" Borton asked him.   
  
"I didn't stick around to see the rest of it." said Cook. "I just – I ran back to my office. I checked every door along the way. All locked. My office was locked, too. So were the security stations, and the guards were trapped inside. I didn't know what to do, what was happening. People were screaming. I could hear 'em, behind the other locked doors. We've been storing robots in some of the offices, see. We've had so many central breakdowns lately –"  
  
Quinn stopped him. "Wait. You mean this isn't the first occurrence?"  
  
"Are you kidding me? This place has been falling apart for months now." Cook said, and resumed his story. "The bots in the offices must've come online too, started attacking anything, everyone. I _thought_ we shut them all down. The ones in the repair bay were shut down, that's for sure. We don't work on them unless they're completely offline but, I don't know. I remember I was running and I tripped over a scraps bin. We keep them all over the place, wheel them around like laundry carts and chuck old bits into 'em. I ran right into the thing and pieces spilled all over and I just kind of started grabbing anything I could. I thought, you know, maybe I could do something to get the doors open again. Maybe there was something in the bin I could use."  
  
Cook was fidgeting with his utility belt as he spoke. Borton could tell he wasn't enjoying having to describe it to them.  
  
"There were people outside, a few of them, running around. Not many, but they were screaming too. Hank Johnson, he's one of the collection team heads." said Cook, expecting them to know exactly what the job entailed. "He was making his way to the sleeping barracks when the power cut off, so he was in the halls too. Came up to me and he was saying something about climbing up to the next level. Using the emergency exits, same as you people. I said, Hank, if the bots are going nuts down here then odds are they're going nuts up there."  
  
"I saw a man in the Prehistoric-realm." Borton interrupted. "He was dressed like you. A dinosaur got him. I didn't see his name." she informed him.  
  
Cook shook his head sadly.  
  
"When he asked me if I wanted to go with him I never answered. Didn't see him leave. He must've thought I looked like a damn crazy fool, scrambling for parts from a scraps bin. I wanted anything I could use to open the doors. But I wanted something to keep myself safe, too, right?"  
  
Cook held up the cattle-prod for them to inspect.  
  
"Made this. Took me a half hour to build. It was the best I could do on short notice. It'll stun a bot, though, you can be sure of that. And it'll open a door – provided I shock the right wires." Cook said. "By the time I finished, well, I didn't see anybody else."  
  
"Did you go back to the repair bay?" asked Borton.  
  
Cook ignored the question and returned to his work. "I've been trying to get inside the control room for ages now. I need to get the system back online. I have to find out how to stop the robots."  
  
Borton watched him, interested, as he fiddled with the wires in the circuit box. "So, then, what happened to the people in the repair bay, exactly?" she attempted, as gently as she could.  
  
"Frozen. I went back and the bots looked like they'd all frozen. Everyone else was . . . They were all dead." Cook replied, voice tiny. He gestured to the control room door, adding "I haven't heard anything. I was banging and shouting, but I didn't hear them on the other side. I tried my radio, too. They didn't answer."  
  
Quinn spoke up again. "You can't be serious. This is absolutely insane."  
  
"Everyone in the repair bay is dead." Cook reiterated bluntly. "When it started, I honestly didn't think anything was wrong, you know that? Things go wrong so regularly at Firdos, I mean I've come to expect at least six or seven major glitches a day. Maybe if I'd reacted sooner, I don't know. Maybe if I wasn't such a god damned baby I could've done something. I could've saved lives – or – or prevented this."  
  
It was obvious that Cook didn't want their blame, and he was doing his best to make it perfectly clear to them that absolutely none of this – the robots, the death – was his fault. The guilt on his face was easy to read.  
  
"I had nothing to do with it." Cook clarified earnestly.  
  
"All the robots that are down here, they're secured in the repair bay." Borton calculated out loud.  
  
"I think so." said Cook. "Most of the bots were either in the repair bay, or in offices with locking doors, like I said. They should all be contained."  
  
"Are you absolutely sure?" Borton stressed.  
  
"Pretty sure." said Cook. "Unless they figure out how to hack the locks. If that happens, well, I've got this nifty little thing watching my back."  
  
Cook showed her the electrometer, switching the volume back on. As the chirping recommenced, Cook pointed it first at Borton, and then at Thomas. The chirping increased in speed, and Thomas lowered his head and hissed until Cook shut the sound back off.  
  
"Okay. So we're safe down here." Borton concluded. "More or less. Next item?"  
  
"We were headed to the medical center, weren't we." Quinn reminded her. "For Errol."  
  
"Medical center's locked too." Cook told them. "But I should be able to get it open from the control room."   
  
"Right. So we get into the control room, open the medical center –" Borton started to summarize.  
  
"Forget the medical center. What about help? Shouldn't we phone for help?" Irvine suggested. "That should be the next step, don't you think."  
  
"You can do that while I reboot the system." recommended Cook. "The emergency phones should still be up and running on the backup power. I think."  
  
"The land-line at the hotel was dead, though." Borton said, frowning.  
  
"What about your walkie-talkie?" Irvine insisted.  
  
"My radio? Believe me, I tried every channel. No answer from anybody." Cook restated.  
  
"Did you try to call out with it?" Irvine asked.  
  
"Our broadcasting radius isn't very wide." said Cook. "Firdos radios can't reach the mainland, so there'd be no point in trying. But don't worry. The phones should come back up with the reboot." Cook assured them.  
  
"So we call out after he reboots the system. Problem solved." Quinn announced. "You need any help with that lock, there, Ed?" he offered.  
  
"I've just about got it. It needs a charge. Stand back." Cook said, and carefully he stuck the cattle-prod into the hole. There was a burst of white hot sparks, and then the control room door slid open.  
  
Borton went to scream but found her voice had left her. Piled behind the door was a small mountain of dead technicians.  
  


* * *

  
In times of shock, human beings are reduced to their core reactions. Borton, in her detached, sensible way, saw the bodies and thought – actors in makeup, purple for the cheeks and blue for the lips, don't forget the contact lenses, cloudy eyes mean believable corpses. Everything slowed to a crawl, and while she felt the instinctual urge to flee, she realized there was no real need to. Unlike the tyrannosaurus or the allosaurus, the bodies did not pose any kind of threat. Borton found she had ample time to fully study the men around her and appropriately gauge their reactions.  
  
First there was McCullough, saying "Oh God" over and over again as if the he somehow expected the lord almighty to show up with a broom and dustpan and sweep away the mess. Next was Irvine, head turning as he brought his hand to his mouth and began to retch uncontrollably. For Borton, their combined noise was a muted buzz.  
  
Cook and Quinn, on the other hand, were very physical. When the doors opened they showed their weapons almost in unison, Quinn with the remaining half of the tree branch raised, and Cook with the cattle-prod shooting forward to scorch the neck of the closest body. Borton thought she could smell something burning. Not plastic or rubber this time. It smelled like what happened when a bit of her hair got stuck in her blow-dryer.  
  
 _That's singed skin_ , kido, she told herself, and all at once her legs were reduced to jelly worms. She watched the world tilt around her, and then she was leaning against Thomas. Soft, gentle Thomas, who would always catch her when she fell. Just then he was saying something. Borton watched his scaly jaws wag, but the words were jumbled. It took her a good minute or so to snap herself back out of it.  
  
"Are you all right, Joanna?" Thomas was asking, concern present in his voice.  
  
She spoke with a mouth full of invisible cotton. "Yeah. I'm fine."  
  
The bodies swum at the edges of her vision, threatening to refresh the scene if she shifted her prospective onto anything other than Thomas. She would have to harden herself to it if she wanted to stay calm.  
  
The others were already recovered and starting to move the bodies out of the way, respectfully picking them up and stacking them to the left of the open circuit box like logs. It was sickeningly morbid work, and they went about it as quickly as possible, doing their best to touch only the fabric of the technicians' lab coats as they dragged them out from the cramped threshold of the doorway.   
  
Thomas helped Borton over to the opposite wall and sat her down. Beside her was Irvine, regressed back to his former meltdown and in the middle of blubbering like a newborn. Every so often he would break up the wailing with a dry heave. Borton ignored him, forcing herself to look at the bodies and examine them as analytically as she could stand to. They were still partly pliable, and Borton imagined that the men and women from the control room hadn't been dead all that long. She wondered how their final moments had gone, how each member of the Firdos staff had acted when they realized that _this was it_. She pondered how it must have looked, each of them eventually drooping to the floor in an unconscious, oxygen-deprived heap. She was determined to desensitize herself to the sight of them. She could scream and cry and vomit later on, when Firdos was a dot on the horizon behind her. She had her hand on Thomas as she watched them, clamping at his neck with gritted teeth. Every so often she would dig her fingers into his side and squeeze, and Thomas would reposition himself under her until she was comfortable again. She thought about the comfort of the hovercraft seats, of the familiar feel of her bed at home. Thomas purred and nuzzled at her elbow, and she tried to associate the image of stiff cadavers, long since suffocated in the airtight room, with the feeling of safety he was giving her. After a while, the bodies were cleared from the doorway and she found she could look at them without feeling dizzy. There were maybe thirteen in all. Poor, sorry souls.  
  
Cook was pointing the cattle-prod at Irvine.  
  
"Fella, calm down." he said evenly.  
  
Irvine made no effort to try and hold back his tears. McCullough got down on his knees and settled in front of him.  
  
"Henry, how much do you charge per session? Because I might need some therapy when this is over." he joked.  
  
Irvine didn't respond. McCullough let out a small, nervous chuckle and it was then that Borton made up her mind to intervene. She scooted in close to Irvine, forcing Thomas to readjust himself yet again. The velociraptor wiggled under her, mewling his protest like a jealous cat.  
  
"Henry, will you sit here with me and Tom?" Borton requested, shooing McCullough away with a subtle wave of her hand. "We'll sit here, let Eddie get the system back up and running. Before you know it the lights will be on again. Sound good?"  
  
Irvine nodded and let his head drop onto her shoulder, whimpering somewhat until he was finally quiet again.    
  


* * *

  
The control room was dark, save for the glow of a single console – the only one still on. There was a technician propped up in the chair, facing the screen. His head was flopped back with eyes closed in an expression of peaceful repose.  
  
A gust of a sigh from Cook as he peered in through the doorway. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, we are still online, yes."  
  
He bounded down to the front of the control room, aiming for the working computer, and rolled the wheeled chair out of the way, careful not to disturb the body that was occupying it. He then stooped in front of the screen and gingerly began typing random strings of code into the console, experimenting as he went. McCullough was the first to join him.  
  
"You know this system well?" inquired McCullough.  
  
Cook was candid; "Nope. But how hard can it be?"  
  
The screen kept listing error message after error message whenever Cook tried to input a command.  
  
"Let me have a go." McCullough proposed.  
  
"What would you know about it?"  
  
"Lots. Trust me. I do this stuff in my sleep." McCullough guaranteed him, and took over the keyboard.  
  
Hovering over the terminal, McCullough read through the mass of incomprehensible commands, and scrolled up to futilely check the make-up of each one individually. A second later and he began typing. Cook stared at him in amazement.  
  
"What, uh, what are you doing?"  
  
"Running a key check on every stroke the last guy entered today. It's giving me a letter-for-letter record of everything now. It looks like pretty standard stuff, up until this point here." McCullough said, pointing. "Up until this point here, everything's normal. But after that it just becomes gibberish."  
  
"Can you get us back up and running?"  
  
"Probably. We'll see. I'm trying to get access to the system now. Once I'm in, I should be able to reset everything." McCullough theorized, fingers typing fast.  
  
"When you get in there, will you able to tell what caused all of this?" Cook whispered.  
  
"Most likely." McCullough replied. He was serene in his element, with the luminous lines of code bouncing back off the lenses of his glasses. In that moment, no distraction could jog him.  
  
"Bet you top dollar it was sabotage." Cook estimated. "Believe it or not, Firdos has a lot of enemies. And I'm not just talking about dissatisfied tourists. There are religious groups, fanatics – loads of folks dedicated to hating this place. Hell, if I were a terrorist, you can bet your bottom dollar I'd have Firdos marked number one on my hit-list."  
  
"Whatever happened, I'm sure it's reversible." said McCullough.  
  


* * *

  
Outside the control room, Quinn was pacing the corridor, tossing the tree branch from hand to hand. Borton watched him from her spot on the floor, Irvine nestled against her right shoulder and Thomas huddled under her opposite arm.  
  
"You look like you're expecting a baby." Borton mentioned.  
  
Quinn kept pacing.  
  
"Trying to wear their floor out, huh." she chuckled.  
  
Quinn ignored her, and she hastily changed tactics.  
  
"How you doing, Henry?"  
  
Irvine didn't answer, and his eyes were shut. She tipped her head to check his face, but couldn't tell if he was asleep or just out of it. She jabbed at his bandaged hand, and watched his fingers twitch.  
  
"Fine." she sighed, temporarily giving up. Beneath her, Thomas shifted again to slide his head onto her lap. Borton felt his gullet rumble as he sounded off a low, protective growl, apparently directed at Irvine. Evidently, he was unhappy with the amount of attention Irvine was receiving from her.  
  
"Envy is unbecoming, Tommy-boy. Even if it's programmed." she scolded half-heartedly. "What time is it, anyway?"  
   
Thomas perked up. "It will be one o'clock in four minutes."  
  
"Man, I'm starving." she confessed, wondering if maybe there was a vending machine nearby. One or two candy bars would be enough to tide her over, she was certain of it. Not that she had any coins in her pocket.  
  
Thomas started to lift himself off of her. "Would you like me to locate some –"  
  
She heard Irvine wince sharply.  
  
"Um, better stay put, buddy." she warned, and placed a hand on Thomas' back to push him down onto her lap. Thomas gave a contended trill and settled into place again, languid as a snake.  
  
Her hand still on his back, Borton thought he felt cold, wet. Confused, she brought her hand to her face, peering at the false-blood stains that now smeared her palm, and saw the bluish, gray hue that was intermixing with the red. Her face hardened.  
  
 _Shit. He’s leaking hydraulic fluid._  
  
"Hold still." she said, and leaned over him, studying his chest.  
  
It didn't take her long to spot the wide rip along his side, where his stomach met his ribcage. She bit her lip, wanting to kick herself for having missed it before. Thomas shivered as she dipped the tip of one finger inside the gash. Pulling it out, she saw that it was coated with the same dark blue inky substance.  
  
"Jesus. Why didn't you say something, Tom." she rebuked with trembling lips.  
  
Thomas looked up at her with eyes like a guilty dog, rough pebbled body sinking into her. "I did not wish to alarm you, Joanna. Your well-being is far more important than mine."  
  
"Do something for me, Tom." she requested, fighting hard to keep the dismay from rising in her chest. "Stay here with Henry. I need to get Eddie real quick."  
  
Thomas gave a bark of complaint, and Irvine's head shot up.  
  
"Relax. Both of you. Just stay here, keep each other company. I'll be right back. And Tom? Try to move as little as possible, okay." she begged, and trudged up to the control room doorway.  
  
Quinn was still pacing just outside of it.  
  
"You going to check on their progress?" he asked her.  
  
She glanced briefly at the pile of bodies next to the doorway and was amazed when the familiar fear she had expected did not re-surface. "Yeah." she replied. "I mean no. I need to talk to Eddie. Something's wrong with Tom."  
  
Quinn tensed.  
  
"No, no, he's acting fine. He's –" she went to say _hurt_ but stopped herself. "He's damaged. I need to tell Eddie." she finished.  
  
Determined, Borton crossed the threshold into the control room, anxiety forgotten in the wake of more pressing thoughts. If Thomas was as badly damaged as she assumed he was, he would need immediate fixing.  
  


* * *

  
At the base of the control room, Cook was crowding over McCullough's shoulder, asking him "How long will this take? Are we getting anywhere with these procedures of yours? I mean, what's slowing you down?"  
  
"Well I can't tell," said McCullough, "But it looks like the computer was trying to interpret an incoming source of foreign data. I think it was having a lot of trouble. See this? He's turning the safety systems off to shut the power down. Now look at this next entry, it's the kicker. This is the command to reboot everything, right? It went through but didn't register. Not all the way, and by this point the key check was turned off by the shutdown. Only way to find the rest of the reboot command is to search the computer's lines of code one by one."  
  
"And how many lines of code are there?"  
  
"About two million." said McCullough.  
  
"Two million." Cook glowered, wilting. "Fantastic." He felt something tug on the tail of his jumpsuit. Confused, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Borton standing behind him, face half-hidden by the shadows of the dark room.  
  
"Eddie." she started. "There's a problem with Tom."  
  
"Who?" Cook muttered, forehead wrinkling. "Oh, you mean that little fella with the beard?"  
  
"No. The dinosaur." Borton clarified. "He's damaged and I think he's leaking hydraulic fluid." she said, holding up her blue fingers for Cook to inspect. She saw McCullough straiten by the computer, attention momentarily on her. After a second, he returned to the screen in front of him.  
  
Cook jiggled his utility belt at her. "I can take a look at the bot after we get this sorted out, but if it's a fluid leak I don't know what good I can do. I don't have the necessary tools on me to do a proper patch."  
  
Borton swallowed hard. She didn't know the true extent of the damage, had no real way of finding out – and evidently, neither did Cook. Borton had thought Thomas dead twice already that day, spared the actual sight of his supposed demise. She wasn't sure if she could handle actually witnessing the slow breakdown of a robot drained of hydraulic fluid.  
  
"Can you please just come and take a look at Tom?" she implored. "I don't have any idea how bad the bleed–leaking is and –"  
  
"I'm a little busy here, lady." Cook snapped. "I mean, does fixing that robot really take precedence over getting things up and running again?"  
  
Borton checked herself. "No," she answered glumly. "I guess not." _Although it's not like you're actually busy. Errol's obviously doing all the work for you_ , she scoffed internally.  
  
Cook went back to the peering over McCullough's shoulder, dismissing her with a sharp twitch of his head. Borton felt a seeping fatigue overtake her.  
  
"When you're finished, then." she prompted him. "It's important."  
  
"Don't see how." she heard Cook mumble. She went to say something, oddly offended by the comment, but McCullough was suddenly pitching a loud fit of self-congratulation in his spot at the console.  
  
"Ah! Ah-ha! Well done, sir. Brilliant." he cackled. "Whoever designed this system had the intelligence to build in a backdoor. It was hidden. Oh, boy, was it ever – but nothing stays hidden from Errol C. McCullough."  
  
"That's great!" exclaimed Cook, momentarily forgetting Borton's dilemma. "Can you shut the robots down?"  
  
"Doesn't look like it, no." said McCullough.  
  
"What can you get up and running?"  
  
McCullough cracked his neck. "See, here's the thing. I've only got access to a few of the primary backup features. The main system's still offline, so I'm talking mostly security bits and bobs." he explained.  
  
"Elevators?" asked Cook.  
  
"Erm, not on the list. We've got alarms, sprinklers, air circulation. Oh! Air circulation. Right, let's turn _that_ back on, shall we. There we go. Perfect."  
  
Borton felt a light puff of cold as the air in the room turned crisp, and she though she could hear the faint roll of manufactured wind blowing through the ceiling vents.  
  
"Door locks? Can you open the doors?" Cook inquired eagerly.  
  
"I believe so, yes." said McCullough.  
  
"And what about the lights?" requested Cook.  
  
A few taps on the keyboard and McCullough frowned.  
  
"I can get some of them back on, certain offices maybe, along with a handful of these computers here – I think – but I'm afraid the hallways are going to stay dark. And Eddie, just so you know, there's nothing I can do to get the Firdos system fully operational again. Everything's too corrupt now."  
  
Next to the set of terminals was a beige phone. Borton picked it up and heard a steady monotonous hiss. "Phones are still out." she said. "Errol?"  
  
"Hang that up, let me see." McCullough replied. He punched a series of commands into the computer and hummed to himself. "Thought so. There's some kind of data stream occurring in the background. That same foreign nonsense I was telling you about. I can't make heads or tales of it. Might be what's causing everything to freeze like this."  
  
"Has it taken all the phone lines down? Even the internal ones?" Cook asked.  
  
McCullough's glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and teetered as he assessed the read-out on the screen. He pushed them back up with a stiff finger and said "Seems it's taken all the lines that communicate outside, but your internal lines should still work."  
  
Borton poked at the telephone buttons, one after another. She heard nothing but hissing on all the lines.  
  
"Looks like it's got them all." she said, and dropped the receiver with an agitated groan. Once again, she was reminded of the fact that she didn't have her mobile phone with her, and she found that she now felt truly naked without it. "What about – um – them?" she asked Cook, referring to the bodies in the hallway. "Would one of the workers have a phone we could use?"  
  
She wasn't thrilled at the idea of looting a corpse, but if it meant getting through to some one on the surface, she decided she was willing to debase herself that way.  
  
"Maybe, but there's no signal down here." Cook explained. "Mostly we just use the radios and the landlines. The guests can bring phones in, all right, but most of them don't, believe it or not. We did a survey once. Something about people not wanting to ruin the fantasy atmosphere with technology."  
  
McCullough laughed. "That's ironic, all things considered."  
  
Borton kicked at the carpet. "So, no phones. And I'm guessing no wireless internet. This is great."  
  
"Isn't it." McCullough replied, leaning back with an amused little smile. "Looks like we're cut off down here, for the time being. I'm afraid there's really not all that much more I can do. Not without finding the source of the data stream and canceling it out, and that could take ages."  
  
Borton put her hands to her temples and rubbed them. She thought of her father, tried to center on logic and reason. It was getting very difficult to think strait, as she was becoming more and more preoccupied with her empty stomach, as well as Thomas' well being – two things she knew didn't really matter all that much, in the grand scheme of things.  
  
"Okay." she said steadily. "All right. So, we're cut off. Could be worse. There's food down here, right. Has to be. So we just, you know, we wait for people to come."  
  
"Who?" Cook inquired.  
  
Borton shook her head. "Somebody out there has to know this has happened. Errol, what are the odds that one of the workers managed to alert the mainland before the power went out?"  
  
"Judging by the state of these computers – very slim." McCullough replied apologetically.  
  
"Fine, but won't there be another hovercraft arrival soon?" Borton offered.  
  
"Guests usually touch down every two weeks." Cook informed her. "That's the schedule, and the last hovercraft landed this past saturday, didn't it."  
  
Borton nodded. "The one we were on, yeah."  
  
She realized that if they waited for the next batch of guests to arrive, they would be stuck down in the cavernous depths of the Firdos control compound for at least ten days, and that was only if the hovercraft came on the following Friday. She could see it now. McCullough reduced to a boredom-inspired mania, Irvine suffering nervous breakdown after nervous breakdown thanks to his claustrophobia, Quinn trying to handle them both and Cook, waving his cattle-prod around like a crazed dictator. Even if Thomas was there to protect her, she didn't entirely like the idea of spending so much time alone in a secluded hole in the ground with that many potentially unpredictable men.  
  
"We could wait for one of the employee boats, or the supply ship." Cook suggested. "The supply ship shows up every week at the eastern dock. It's due this thursday, I think. Comes in around midnight."  
  
 _Now there's a better option_ , thought Borton. Waiting two days instead of ten was far more appealing than the alternative.  
  
"The supply ship will only dock once they receive permission from us through the radios." Cook added, unclipping the radio from his utility belt. "And even if they don't get permission they might notify some one to come and check on us. Of course, we don't know the time-table for that."  
  
"It's certainly a start." said McCullough.  
  
Borton clicked her tongue, frustrated. From the doorway came the sound of footsteps. Looking up, she saw Quinn leading Thomas down the aisle toward the console, with Irvine hobbling after them.  
  
"What's the story?" Quinn called down to them. "Do we know what happened? Are the phones back up yet?"  
  
"Is help coming?" Irvine added nervously.  
  
Borton's eyes remained on Thomas while Cook answered Quinn and Irvine's questions. A robot without any hydraulic fluid moved similarly to a man with extreme arthritis. Watching Thomas now, Borton could see that his actions had already been reduced to stiff jerks and creaking twists. She knew that it wouldn't be long until he locked up completely, and when that happened, he would become useless as any kind of reliable source of safety.  
  
Cook was in the middle of a sentence when Borton promptly cut him off.  
  
"If Errol's got the power back on, can you have a look at Tom now?"  
  
"Lady, can't it wait? We still have to –"  
  
"No." she said harshly. "It can't."  
  
Cook gave her a sideways glare. "What in the hell does it matter if the damn thing's leaking? There are more important things to take care of right now. We've got some of the power back, yes, but we still need to figure out how many robots are out there, and how we're going to shut them down. I'm sure your friends all agree with me about that."  
  
Borton squared her shoulders, patience gone.  
  
"It matters because it –  _he_ saved our lives. We can't just let him break like this. We owe it to him to . . ." she drifted off as her face warmed. _Get a hold of yourself, Jo_. "Look at it this way. He was a decoy when we were up against the rex. Suppose we need him again? He protected us. I mean, presumably we're out of danger now, but if we're going to be stuck down here for a while I'd rather have Tom fully functional, just in case. Wouldn't you?" she argued.  
  
Cook took a moment to evaluate her claim before eventually marching over to Thomas. Crouching in front of the dinosaur's ribcage, he carefully examined the gash in the glow of the computer screen. From his tool belt, he withdrew a medium-sized screwdriver and a small flashlight. Holding the flashlight in his teeth, he slipped the head of the screwdriver into the gash and twirled it along the curve of the metal interior.  
  
"How bad is it?" Borton asked him, gnawing on the inside of her cheek.  
  
Cook pocketed the screwdriver and spit the flashlight into his hand. To Borton he said "Bad. Nothing's pooled inside him, though. He must've been dripping this whole time and you never saw it because of the dark. But I'm willing to bet his fluid levels are pretty low, and I don't have the tools or the replacement liquid handy to fix him. Think I told you that."  
  
Borton was hazy, like she was sleep-walking. For a small instant, she felt as though she were back in her father's hospital room, talking to one of the nurses. _Nothing but bad news all around_. Borton grit her teeth. It didn't defeat her then, and it wouldn't now.  
  
"Can you get the tools? Are they in your office, or somewhere around here?" she questioned.  
  
Cook clenched his jaw. "They're in the repair bay."  
  
"All right," said Borton. "So we head down to the repair bay, fix Tom up there. Errol can unlock the doors, turn the lights on."  
  
Irvine and Cook were shouting simultaneously – "Are you insane?" Cook took the lead. "I'm not about to go back down there. That's a damn graveyard, lady. A viper pit."  
  
Quinn joined in. "Jo, if we open the repair bay then the robots will get out."  
  
"Eddie said they were frozen." she disputed.  
  
"But what if they're not?" Irvine warbled, on the verge of hysterics again. "W-What if they were faking it or – or, I don't know, asleep?"  
  
"He's right." said Cook. "They could've been dosing. It's what they do to conserve battery power."  
  
It was at that point that McCullough spoke back up.  
  
"Umm, I have an idea." he began, sounding slightly sinister. "It says here your sprinkler system is localized. Is that right?"  
  
"Yes." Cook replied. The sprinklers in most areas of Firdos were designed to go off wherever a fire was detected, but only in that area. This helped to minimize water damage to the equipment. "Less gets ruined that way." said Cook.  
  
"Right, yes. Practical." McCullough nodded. "Ah, fun fact. It just so happens that I can set off individual sprinklers from here. Without there being a fire. Would you like me to do that?"  
  
Cook's eyes widened.  
  
"Yes." he said, grinning along with McCullough. "Yes, I would."  
  
"You mean you're going to drown them all?" Irvine asked, a hint of glee in his voice.  
  
"Fry them." McCullough corrected, steepling his fingers under his chin.  
  
"What about waterproofing?" Borton mentioned. "Won't some be waterproofed? Like the aquatic dinosaurs in the Prehistoric-realm?" She was looking at Thomas when she spoke. He didn't seem at all bothered by the prospect of electrocuting other robots.  
  
"Some are waterproofed, yes." Cook told her. "The pirates are, because of their sea-fairing environment. But if they're in the repair bay, that means they've all been opened up. They'll be vulnerable to the water."  
  
Irvine straitened in his spot by Quinn, suddenly full of vigor.  
  
"Then what are you people waiting for? Do it." he blurted, picking furiously at his bandaged hand. "Do it. Fry the bastards."  
  
"Hell yes. I second that." Quinn said, thrusting the tree branch into the air energetically.  
  
Borton interjected – "Wait. The equipment we need to help Tom is going to get wrecked along with the robots."  
  
"Some of it, yes. But don't worry." Cook promised her. "The things we'll need should be all right, and the more expensive stuff like spare batteries and fresh fluid are locked up in storage drawers. They should stay dry."  
  
Borton contemplated the plan and, deciding it was the best way to go, gave McCullough the cue to start the sprinklers. Laughing wickedly, McCullough typed up the command and said "See how you like the downpour, eh? Ha. Give it ten minutes. That's how long I've told it to last. Ought to be enough to thoroughly drench them, I believe. After that the doors will open automatically. While you're out, I'll see what I can do about the rest of the bots up top."  
  
Cook made a move for the control room door, gesturing for Borton and Thomas to join him. As they reached the threshold he called back down to McCullough. "We won't be long." Borton saw McCullough salute him from in front of the console, and then she and Thomas were jogging down the corridor after Cook, headed in the direction of the repair bay.  

 

* * *

  
Simon Vladamir Pavakof was born the son of a Russian gunsmith and an Asian pianist. He spent the majority of his childhood on the island of Sakhalin, Russia, where he excelled at his academics, particularly science and mathematics. He graduated from secondary school four years in advance of his peers, with honors.  
  
At the age of twenty-seven, Pavakof immigrated to the United Kingdom after his proposal of marriage was declined by a woman who bore a striking resemblance to the actress Deborah Kerr. Despite having a PHD in Mechanical Engineering, and several years worth of experience working in the field of Computer Information Technologies, the only employment Pavakof was able to find was as a games-machine technician at a seaside arcade in the Isle of White.   
  
Pavakof spent a total of twelve years at the Avalanche Arcade, where he repaired slot machines and video games for a relatively meager wage. In his spare time, he began development of what would later become the grandmother of all Firdos robots – the world's first interactive, multipurpose synthetic human, modeled after infamous frontierswoman and professional scout, Calamity Jane.  
  
On any other day, Borton might have found this in-depth biography of Firdos' founder terribly fascinating. At this particular moment, however, she was heavily preoccupied by more important matters, and the way Cook was rambling turned her off completely. Even so, she did not have the heart to tell him to be quiet. It was obvious that the topic was keeping his mind off of other, more dire things, and she decided to let him have his distractions.  
  
"Do you make the robots here, on location?" she asked him, hoping to shift the conversation somewhat. "Have you got a studio or – or something? A place where they're built, like a workshop?"  
  
Cook shook his head.  
  
"Robot production is off-site. We have a plant in India. The laws are less strict over there." Cook explained.  
  
Borton nodded once, indicating that she was up for hearing more.  
  
"We give the plant our specifications, blueprints and all that, and they manufacture the robots in pieces and send everything our way." Cook went on. "We put the bots together here, turn them on, test them. If there are any issues with them, we turn them off, ship them back. Or scrap them for parts."  
  
"Might want to get a hold of India, when the phones are back up." she suggested.  
  
"I doubt anything's happening on their end. There's no unauthorized robotic operation outside of Firdos." Cook quoted, sounding as if he was reading from a safety pamphlet. "See, nobody other than resort staff has the capacity to turn these bots on."  
  
"How is that possible?"  
  
"There are special tools required," said Cook, "And a voice command that needs to be applied. We can power them up, but they'd be blank without hearing it first. Even with their personalities installed, they need that special phrase to activate correctly. The director of operations down here – Nakamura – he had to be present for every batch that started up because he was the only one who knew the voice command." Cook continued. "Well, him and a few of the board members. Originally, it was Pavakof's idea. He came up with the phrase, I think. When he was still here. It's never been changed."  
  
"How long has Pavakof been out of the picture?"  
  
"Few years now. Retired. You'd like him. He's your typical, crazy old man. A real eccentric."  
  
"What about Tom? I woke him up myself and he seemed all-there." Borton said, although it wasn't entirely true. During her first encounter with the velociraptor, she had gone hunting for an on-switch, and he had come online before she had been able to find one.  
  
"He was probably hibernating," Cook justified. "Dosing, like I said. Dosing's like an in-between state for the bots. Bit tough to describe, but it helps with battery life, and nightly data transfer. They wait until they sense motion or hear noise, and sort of wake up."  
  
"I think I get it."  
  
Cook lead them past another set of offices, a drinking fountain and an employee lounge. Borton wondered if there was a kitchen close-by. It had been more or less established that they were going to be well and truly stuck underground for two days at least, waiting for the supply ship to dock, and she was worried about what the group was going to do for food. She was confident there was a source, hopefully something more reliable than an automatic chef, but what concerned her was how they would cook the food once they found – especially if McCullough wasn't able to bring the rest of the power back up.  
  
Cook turned a corner.  
  
"There it is." he said, and pointed. "Right up there. That's the repair bay"  
  
By the looks of it, the repair bay now had power. Borton could see that the farthest part of the hallway was fully lit thanks to a rectangle of almost angelic light emanating from the wide window by the closed door. Secretly she blessed McCullough, unable to imagine how they would have gone about fixing Thomas in the dark.  
  
By the time she reached the door McCullough was in the process of opening it. She brought her face to the window and gazed into the room. The first thing she noticed was that the sprinklers had given everything a thorough dowsing. The glass had been misted, and inside, the floor was covered by an inch and a half of standing water. Her eyes then fell on the tools and instruments that sat on a rack just inside the window-frame. Farther in were a number of overturned operating tables, and most of the monitors connected to them were lying broken on the ground, their screens shattered and their cords splayed out in the water.  
  
Suddenly, the door slid open, and the water drained out into the hall. Cautiously, Borton moved inside. Glass sparkled up from the tiles, half-hidden in the wet, and strewn around the floor were various tools – and the bodies of the dead. Unlike the technicians from the control room, these were raw and badly mutilated, some of them partially covered by blanket-sized white tarps. Borton took one look and retreated from the room with a strangled cry.  
  
"Christ." she spat, panting. She steadied herself against the opposite wall with one hand, not wanting to collapse again. Thomas was immediately at her side and pestering her, but she remained stony, refusing to look weak again in front of Cook, or give him any type of excuse that might allow him to abandon the venture.  
  
Fortunately, Cook didn't seem to care. He was leaning by the window and forcing himself to look everywhere but the floor of the repair bay, just as badly put off as she was. Currently, his eyes were trained on the ceiling. To Borton he said "You want I should get the dinosaur to grab the stuff? The tools? I can have him bring it all out here for us. I can do the patch job out here, no problem."  
  
Borton could hear from his voice that he was struggling to keep it together.  
  
"No." she said, squeezing her eyes shut. "No, you need light to work well, don't you. The light's better in there. Give me a minute. I'll be all right."  
  
Cook's focus darted around the ceiling of the repair bay. He counted the long, hallucinogenic lamps that hung there – by his tally, there were eight in all. One of them kept blinking. "I don't know if I want to go back in there."  
  
"We have to." Borton stressed. "How long will it take to fix Tom?"  
  
"Might take ten minutes, might take an hour. Depends on what's wrong." Cook said. "I have to have a proper look first. Robots are complicated things."  
  
Borton chuckled at that. "I know."  
  
Slowly, she turned back around to face the repair bay, and took a shaky breath. Like she'd done with the control room technicians, she made herself see the blood – the remains. _Could be worse_ became her mental mantra, and she chanted it over and over again in her head in an attempt to stay calm. It didn't work. She felt the bile rise in her throat and quickly forced it back down, formulating a new strategy.  
  
"Okay." she wheezed, "Okay, okay." She had a decision to make. Was Thomas really worth putting herself through this type of vivid experience? Yes. That much was obvious. She could list a million reasons why. Instead, she chose to pick three. He had saved her life, so she owed it to him. He would come in handy, so she had to see him fixed. And there was something else. Something she wasn't quite willing to admit to herself.  
  
"Mind over matter. That's the solution here." She was surprised to think of Quinn then – of his gruff voice repeating what he'd told her on the day they all arrived in the Prehistoric-realm. _Not a problem unless I make it a problem, and I'm not making it a problem._  
  
"Exactly." Borton consented. Thomas was standing just behind her, butting her compassionately with his nose. "So, we'll go back in." she announced, adamant. "We'll do it on the count of three. It'll be fine."  
  
"Like hell it will." Cook criticized, looking pale.  
  
"Just pretend it's a movie set. Pretend it's fake blood."  
  
"Some of it is." Cook reminded her.  
  
"Right. Yeah. On the count of three, then." said Borton, and began counting. "One, two, three."  
  
Together, they re-entered the repair bay, carefully tiptoeing around the scattered corpses. Right away bloodstains shouted at her from the walls, spurts of strong red against the clean white paint. It almost looked like art – the smeared screams of the dead – and Borton flinched from the noise in this silent room full of dark stains drying.  
  
The air too was heavy with that familiar metallic smell, intensified by the surrounding chemicals. Oil and different lubricants, old batteries, burnt plastic. She thought she could hear a faint dripping coming from somewhere close-by. As it turned out, the source of the noise was Thomas. In the fresh light, Borton could see that a fine treacle of hydraulic fluid was leaking down his stomach. Every so often a penny-sized blob would plummet from his underside and land in the water with a light plunk. Surrounded by the clash of sterile white and crimson, she became aware of a sense of impending urgency.  
  
"What's the plan?" she asked Cook.  
  
"I need the right parts, and the right tools. From there, I'll take a look at him and see what I can do."  
  
Borton nodded. She understood the process of repairing a robot better than anyone, and she was eager to see it done right. She began to pace around the room, hunting. Not clear on why, she had expected to see the stereotypical mad scientist's monster-making kit. Beakers full of strange chemicals, laboratory sets featuring test tubes and bunson burners, and hotplates boiling goblets of steaming broth. She was almost disappointing to discover that the rest of the room looked fairly similar to her own workshop. It was even arranged the same way, although some of the inner elements had more in common with an operating theater.  
  
Tentatively she stepped around a dog-pile of what she could only assume were robots. In all fairness, she had no way of knowing, since some of the robots were indeed wearing static-free clean suits, the same as the technicians. What made it even more impossible to tell them apart was that the robots were bleeding as well. She found herself surrounded by wide puddles of crimson red, and the robots that Borton _could_ pick out looked like escaped hospital patients, covered in electrodes and missing crucial parts of their outer shells. It was nightmarish. Several of them, only a handful, were still smoking and sizzling in the water.    
  
There was a tray of tools on the top of a short cabinet behind one of the overturned operating tables. Some of the tools looked familiar. A multi-headed screwdriver, chisels, a wire brush, several scribers, arbors, even an expensive-looking tap and die set. Borton had used them all regularly in her work, but there were other items that were less recognizable. Something that looked like a scalpel, another that resembled a shrunken bone-drill, a pair of forceps. Like the Q-tips and the mouth wash, she chose to pocket several of the more familiar tools in case Thomas required further repairs down the line. She hoped it wouldn't come to that, but it never hurt to be prepared. She made sure to swipe a spare bag of hydraulic fluid, and an extra battery (cylindrical shaped and only about as large as a pill bottle).   
  
On the back wall by the corner hung a framed article with the headline "Calamity Jane and her Creator". It featured a picture of a barrel-chested, balled man standing beside a young woman with sharp, angular features. The woman appeared to be dressed in a cowboy outfit, and was holding a large six-shooter in the one hand, and a dirty rifle in the other. Borton looked closer and saw the metallic glint in the woman's eyes. A robot, no doubt about it. She wondered if the woman could be the Calamity Jane character mentioned in the headline – the same one Cook had told her about. The caption below the photograph read "The slight of her hand is a quick pulled trigger".  
  
"That's Pavakof." Cook explained when he saw she was looking at the article. According to him, Pavakof built Calamity Jane in part to help attract more tourism at the Avalanche Arcade. Initially, she was programmed to do a shooting show, and she drew a considerably crowd. Later on, Pavakof gave her an upgrade so that she would be able to challenge audience members to a draw. Of course, she was programed to loose to these opponents. "Folks loved it," said Cook, "Getting to kill a real historical cowgirl every night. It was phenomenal."  
  
Borton nodded and quietly switched her attention onto the balled man. So that was Pavakof. He was stout compared to the robot, and his face was stern, but Borton thought she could see a glimmer of friendliness there too.  
  
"He made so much money with Calamity Jane, he thought, why not make a whole theme park populated with attractions like her. Like one big arcade game." Cook continued. "Originally, he wanted to do a Western-realm first, where people could play like cowboys and Indians. Even tried to sell the idea to Disney. Would you believe they didn't want it? Just to get back at them, he went and found a bunch of willing investors, and made the Pirate-realm instead. His idea was that he would show up the robots at Disney, seeing how his pirates were better than theirs. They tried suing for that, but he won. And, well, now here we are."  
  
"Here we are." Borton parroted, interest waning.  
  
"You know what Firdos means? It means paradise. It's a middle-eastern word." Cook bragged.  
  
Borton didn't reply. She wondered if Pavakof knew his robots had started killing people, and tried to imagine him reacting to the news.  
  
Thomas chattered at her hip, causing her to remember the task at hand. Taking the lead, she began searching for the pieces required to mend him. There were three operating tables left upright. The first table was occupied by a large pirate robot, complete with sword and musket. The second table was unoccupied, but badly bloodied. With the proper pieces in hand, Borton approached the third table. It was clean, but still wet, and she rubbed the surface down with her shirt sleeve before allowing Thomas to climb onto it.  
  
Cook addressed Thomas in an authoritative tone of voice. "Firdos machine, I'm going to need to ask you to shut yourself down so I can make the necessary–"  
  
The robot's objection was instant.  
  
Thomas gave an unexpected, menacing hiss, teeth bared. Cook showed him the cattle prod, threatening to deactivate him manually, and to Borton's surprise, Thomas barked – indignant. She and Cook shared nervous glances, and for a moment neither spoke.  
  
"On second though," Cook began tenderly, "It's probably such a minor problem, you don't really need to power down. Okay? In fact, it'll be better if you stay awake and help walk me through this."  
  
Thomas croaked his appreciation.  
  
"Good idea." Borton approved, and reached across the table to push Thomas down so that he was laying flat with his chest un-obscured. He gave a rattled squawk at the touch. "Behave, please." Borton told him. He was curled up on the table like a napping pigeon with legs tucked under his stomach, and it was difficult for him to get into the right position.  
  
When he was settled Borton said "Now, Tom, if something feels – um – if something registers as wrong, Tom, if we're meddling with something the wrong way you let us know. All right? Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes, Joanna. I understand. I will notify you immediately if I am repaired incorrectly." said Thomas. "Thank you for helping me." he added sweetly.  
  
"Sure thing, buddy." said Borton.  
  
There was a large, multi-reflector light on a rod attached to a wheeled pedestal beside the table. At Cook's request, Borton swung it around so that it glided into place just over Thomas' chest, and switched it on. Cook took a small, oblong dental mirror from the tray and slid it under the rubber, entering at the tear and holding the skin open a quarter of an inch in order to more easily turn the mirror and cast the reflection back.  
  
"Can I have a look?" Borton inquired.  
  
Holding the mirror in place for herself, Borton saw a number of wires, tightly bundled together and sliced through in a messy way. Some of them were visibly oozing. Borton brought her face up close and squinted. The tiny hollow tubes weren't more than a few centimeters in diameter, and to help set them apart from the other, similarly sized circuit wires, they had been colored bright yellow. Of course, without any blueprints to go by, Borton was judging by practical knowledge alone. Her experience working on robots told her that, because the tubes contained hydraulic fluid rather than the lighter, copper cabling designed for currency flow – they would need to be repaired. Either that, or replaced. Cauterizing them was not an option, as that would jeopardize the flow of crucial lubricants and pressurized viscosity to whatever parts of Thomas they connected to. The last thing she wanted was to make matters worse, and sealing the tubes shut would cause him to slow down – make his body work even harder to move than it was doing now, thereby speeding up the depletion of battery life.  
  
"Damn." Borton said, and pursed her lips, thinking. She glanced at Cook's chubby fingers. This was the type of thing that required delicate hands.  
  
Gently, she spread the rubber further open at the split using a pair of forceps, and, ever so slightly, eased the ruptured tubes out of the hole – enough to be able to work on them without accidentally damaging any of the adjacent wiring. Cook gave an impressed hum as she plucked gingerly at the severed connections, pausing to look up at Thomas. He stared back at her with a face of patient wonder.  
  
"You can't feel this, right?" she reasoned, leaning over Thomas. A small, bird-like tic of his head confirmed the guess, and she let out a heavy sigh. "Good." she said.  
  
She withdrew her hands from the injury. If she was going to do this, she was going to have to detach herself from Thomas. Temporarily, but it had to happen. Thomas was different from the other robots she had worked on in the past. She had invested a good amount of emotion in him, but the process of fixing the tubes would require methodical precision, and she couldn't waste her energy on worrying if she was going to hurt him.  
  
Next to her, Cook was grinning. "Lady, can I ask you something? What's your job, huh?"  
  
Borton grinned back. "I'm a special effects supervisor."  
  
Cook beamed. "So you're the Hollywood one. No offense, but I pegged you for the kiddie shrink."  
  
"Nope." she replied, dropping the smile. "Since these machines are your territory, I'll let you take the wheel. But I'd like to help, if that's all right."  
  
She handed the forceps back to Cook.  
  
"Sure, sure. I didn't mean anything, by the way." Cook said, "I've got nothing against women fixing robots. Firdos hires all kinds, you know."  
  
Borton chose not to comment. She spent the remainder of the procedure alternating between acting as Cook's assistant and doing some of the leg-work herself, under his instruction. She wasn't sure if Cook was letting her help because he legitimately thought she was capable, or if it was some way of trying to make amends for having potentially insulted her. Either way, her ingenuity and technical knowledge allowed her to navigate Thomas' inner workings with relative ease, even despite their complexity.  
  
In the end, she and Cook wound up replacing the tubes with fresh ones that they'd found in a storage drawer. Presently, Borton was in the process of re-applying new hydraulic fluid. When she was finished, she planned to sew the tear back up and seal it with a kind of solidifying, plastic molding-caulk designed specifically for the purpose of covering what the Firdos technicians liked to refer to as "bot scars".  
  
"Hey," Cook smirked, taking over for her. "Wanna see something?"  
  
He picked up a screwdriver and tapped it against a small bridge of circuity by the entrance of the wound. As he did, the velociraptor's tail raised into the air and flailed like a fish.  
  
"Cut it out." Borton warned. Cook only laughed.  
  
Just then Thomas opened his mouth – "May I tell you something?" Borton thought that he sounded so innocent, almost child-like, and she felt her chest tighten again. Suddenly he rolled his head away from her, strangely dejected. "I lied to you."  
  
Confused, she waited for him to finish.  
  
"I'm so sorry." he confessed. "I am ruined. I did not want you to worry, but I also did not want you to think less of me."  
  
"Don't be silly. You're fine." said Borton, and for a time she watched Cook skillfully sew the halves of torn rubber together, one intricate stitch at a time. Afterward, he grabbed a small paintbrush, dipped it into the molding-caulk, and began to re-create the pattern of reptilian scales over the exposed thread line.  
  
The calming quiet broke when Thomas' sound-box squeaked out the words "I love you".  
  
Startled, Borton's head snapped up. "What?"  
  
"You should not have to see me in this state." Thomas growled softly, but Borton was still under the impression that she hadn't heard him right the first time around. "You deserve a better tour-guide."  
  
She blanked, still stuck on "love".  
  
Were the tour-guides even supposed to say things like that to their wards? _Probably_ , Borton figured, doing her best to rationalize it – hoping intensely that it wasn't a sign of budding corruption. She cleared her mind, analyzing. She knew that, if anything, Thomas had been specifically built to soothe and comfort small children, to present himself as friendly and warm. And it was certainly a warm thing for him to say – "I love you". And sensible enough, she supposed. After all, plenty of shops sold toys that told children they loved them, and that was what he was. _Just a big old toy._ She pictured a draw-string dolly on sale for an extortionate amount, with a try-me sticker taped to it's stomach, and made a conscious decision to see his declaration as nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing worth devoting too much of her remaining energy towards evaluating.  
  
"I love you, Joanna." Thomas said again, although this time she thought the words sounded a lot more like _I wuv you_. Something cute and harmless, the kind of thing a talking teddy bear would say.  
  
Thomas seemed to deflate when she wouldn't respond. "Do you think less of me? Do you still want me, even though I'm ruined?" he asked her, doleful.  
  
"Sure, buddy. I still want you." she answered, still partially baffled but doing her best to cope. "You're not ruined."  
  
Thomas mewled his conviction, utterly forlorn. "Please keep playing with me, Joanna. I am ruined but I can still play. I can still be useful. I promise. Please don't throw me out." It was like he was in pain, like the idea of her discarding him that way was causing him actual physical distress. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?  
  
"You're not ruined, Tom, You're just, you know, broken a little. And I don't mind that. Machine's break, people fix them. Eddie's fixing you right now, and he's doing a good job. He's a professional." Borton placated, beginning to feel uncomfortable. She couldn't figure out what else to say, what more he wanted to hear from her – or why he was requesting her reassurance on the matter. It was obvious that he was afraid, though, and that was even more disconcerting than his supposed love for her.  
  
 _Afraid of what, though_ , Borton argued internally. _He faced down a T-rex not more than a few hours ago. Why in the hell would the idea of me not playing with him anymore get him this riled up?_  
  
Maybe it was the maintenance. Maybe this was why the technicians turned the robots off before doing repairs. Or maybe it was that Thomas was somehow reverting to his base programming again. The tour-guide side of it this time. Either way, Borton thought he sounded almost deranged, spouting that sort of plaintive nonsense.  
    
She rested a hand on his snout as the mood turned awkward.  
  
"Tom. We're buddies. Quit being weird." she ordered, feeling more than a little self-conscious.  
  
The velociraptor squealed on the operating table, restless and inexplicably despairing. Borton was beginning to feel agitated. She was starving, exhausted – surrounded by grown men, half of whom were behaving like panicky children. And now that same description applied to Thomas. Everything was out of her hands, and she felt helpless. Like she was stuck on a film set during re-shoots, and the director just would not let her break for lunch. Thomas was still prattling, and Borton had to forcibly clamp her hand over his mouth to get him to drop it.  
  
"Just lay still for us, huh." she pleaded, at the end of her rope. "Eddie's almost finished. We're going to get out of here."  
  
She felt Thomas' tongue brush her palm as he once again repeated the high-pitched _I wuv you_ phrase. At the other end of the table Cook snorted. He was eying Thomas with renewed suspicion. Borton gave Cook a nervous smile. "You know. For kids." she explained.  
  
Cook nodded and went back to work, looking only half-convinced.  
  


* * *

  
"The system. It's quantum."  
  
McCullough's words were barely a whisper, spoken so faintly that Irvine nearly missed them. But he was acutely focused on listening, and had been for the last fifteen minutes – paying attention to every piece of technical jargon McCullough had mumbled, desperately waiting until the other man mentioned something about having brought the phones back online.  
  
That hadn't happened yet, but the inflection McCullough used was cause for increased attention.  
  
"Quantum?" Irvine parroted back.  
  
He didn't want the definition. He wanted to know what the word meant, if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Overall, Irvine wished he knew more about computers. He knew the basics, the same as everybody did. His laptop was arranged to his specific preferences, and he could navigate a stranger's desktop if he had to, but unlike Borton or McCullough, his experience stopped there. Irvine's speciality was people, people's minds, their wants, their fears, the mental how and why behind the things they did. He knew how to break people down. Computers were harder. For Irvine, computers were foreign, and so were terms like quantum.  
  
"Quantum," said McCullough, "Quantum means these machines are a lot worse off than I think any of us were expecting. No need to bore you with the details. I've managed to get some more of the system back, temporarily. I'm trying to see how many of the robots are still operational."  
  
On the computer screen McCullough brought up a triangular chart, split into five color-coded sections. Each section was a breakdown of the number of robots still active in the park, displaying both their remaining battery life and their current location on the island. The model numbers of the active robots were colored red, while the numbers of the inactive robots were colored mute gray. According to the readout, the majority of the robots were above the control compound level, in the main realms, but McCullough showed Irvine that a number of robots were present underground as well. Switching the map so that just the underground level was showing, he traced the outline of offices with his finger.  
  
"There's a total of three hundred twenty seven robots online right now, in Firdos, and their programming all stems from a quantum computer." McCullough explained.  
  
"And how many of those are down here with us?" asked Irvine.  
  
"Around forty five, looks like." he said, searching the screen. For a moment he paused, adjusting his glasses. He was looking at a section on the map labeled "repair bay". He shook his head. "No, that can't be right. I had the sprinklers on. That can't be right at all."  
  
Irvine rubbed his hands anxiously. "What is it? What's wrong now?"  
  
McCullough's face was drawn into a skeletal frown. There were approximately sixteen robots in the repair bay, and the computer screen showed that the model numbers of all but two were grayed out. McCullough could account for the first red model number – that one was obviously Thomas – but the fact that there was another red model number on the computer screen meant that there was a second, active robot in the repair bay.  
  
"Quinn," McCullough began, tone rising. "Quinn!"  
  
Quinn had moved to the back of the control room again, and was patrolling the doorway with the tree branch. As soon as McCullough began shouting his name, he came running up to the console. "What's up?"  
  
McCullough said "We have a problem in the repair bay."

 

* * *

  
With the repairs done, Cook was keen to leave. He kept gesturing towards the doorway and pacing up to it, only to stop and turn back. Borton was by the table, finishing a series of exams designed to test Thomas' reflexes. She had him jump, twirl, bend and stretch, and each time she kept her eyes on the molding-caulk. It was barely noticeable, and more than once she found herself searching to spot the tear's seam.  
  
Cook called out from the doorway. "Christ, lady. I did a good job. He's moving fine now, so can we please just scram?"  
  
"One more minute." was Borton's reply.  
  
Cook sighed and started looking for something to occupy himself with until she was ready to go. Eventually he began inspecting the robot pirate laying on the nearby operating table, positive he'd worked on it before at some point. To Cook, all Firdos machines looked alike, and he tended to use their costumes to help identify them, but even then it got a little tricky trying to decipher between specific robots. As he looked it over, he began to ponder just what it was doing in the repair bay. It didn't seem to have sustained any notable damage, at least from what Cook could tell. In fact, no part of it was open, indicating that either it had yet to be worked on, or that it had been deemed fit enough to re-enter the Pirate-realm by the time the power outage occurred.  
  
Meanwhile, Borton continued to interrogate Thomas, arms across her chest.  
  
"You're not leaking anymore, are you, Tom?"  
  
"No, Joanna. Hydraulic levels are currently at one-hundred percent. All systems functioning normally."  
  
"And you're not lying about that?"  
  
"No, Joanna."  
  
"No more lies, Tom." Borton admonished. "I get why you lied before, but friends shouldn't do that to each other, okay. If something's wrong with you, you have to tell me from now on."  
  
Thomas rounded her and gave her a playful lick on the wrist. Borton laughed as he went bounding up to the doorway and into the hall.  
  
"Okay," she said, turning back to Cook. "Eddie, we're ready to g–"  
  
She stopped. In Cook's hand, the electrometer's chirping swung across the scale like the ticking of an erratic metronome. It did not settle, but sped up until it resembled one long monotonous tone with barely any spaces in-between. Cook was standing beside the table, staring down at the electrometer's screen with a look of horror on his face. His fingers were still on the volume knob of the electrometer, and he was muttering to himself.  
  
"Should have turned it back on." His voice was oddly strained. Borton thought he sounded hoarse. "Should've checked before the door opened. Should've checked before we came in. "  
  
Borton took a step forward – "Eddie?" – and saw the robot on the operating table. The pirate's eyes were open, and he was staring blankly at the ceiling. He had one arm raised, and for a moment he looked like he was touching Cook's stomach. Cook was grimacing, though, and bent strangely over the robot. She took another step forward and that was when she saw it – the shaft of the pirate's sword, poking out from between Cook's shoulder-blades, tenting the cloth of his jumpsuit and threatening to tear through. The pirate continued to push the sword into Cook's stomach, angling up, and Borton gasped with the plunging realization that Cook had been stabbed clear through the heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End: Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please let me know if you like it or how I can improve. (Presumably it wasn't totally contrived of me to introduce a character and then kill him off in a single chapter. Blarg. Whatevs – just trying to move the story on so we can get to human-Tom. Forgive me for my tropey-ness!)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cut off and on their own, the group must somehow figure out a way to escape Firdos alive – all while being stalked by a menacing new robot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took FOR-EEEEEVER to get out and I apologize profusely. I blame my job and the summer workload, but I just want to thank you guys for waiting. You guys have been so patient with me and I totally appreciate it. Good news is that I'll have more free time now so the updates should come a bit quicker. Please let me know what you think in the comments section. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Fun facts: One of the scenes in this chapter was partially inspired by the film 'Tremors 2: Aftershocks'.

_. . . Tuesday: 12:13 pm . . ._

 

Infrared radiation is emitted by all objects above absolute zero, according to the Black Body Radiation Law. Thermographic cameras detect radiation in the infared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and produce images of that radiation, called thermograms. Advanced thermography was the primary reason the dread-pirate Hektor was able to see his surroundings with and without visible illumination. And because the amount of radiation emitted by an object increased with temperature, Hektor was also able to see variations in heat. This meant that any warm objects viewed through the thermographic cameras located behind the lens of each eye stood out easily against cooler backgrounds. In particular, warm-blooded organisms became easily visible, day or night, and so the dread-pirate Hektor saw the world in shades ranging from deep violet to bright, blinding orange. These vibrant heat signatures helped him to separate living organisms from artificial ones. Anything with a temperature above 36.5–37.5 °C (97.7–99.5 °F) was considered to be a biologic.  
  
The biologic in front of him had at first been quite warm, but presently it's core temperature was cooling rapidly. Hektor tugged on his sword handle and heard a groan. A tiny sub-routine in his head deciphered the noise and relayed the meaning back to him in a processed format.  
  
 _[Groan = response to pain or despair. Alt. complain.]_  
  
In simplistic terms, the biologic was unhappy.  
  
The programmed response was prompt.  
  
 _[Please the biologic.]_  
  
Hektor ignored the command and removed the sword from where it was embedded in the biologic's abdomen. He watched, intrigued, as the biologic swiftly doubled over, coughed, and collapsed headlong into the watered-down blood at it's feet. Another dead technician in the repair bay. Hektor cocked his head, listening. His auditory receptors were highly complex. He could hear a mouse squeak approximately half a mile away, and could calculate it's exact location less than sixty seconds after initial sampling. To him, the biologic's heartbeat sounded something like a drowning kettle-drum. It thrashed and slowed, and finally faded to a full-stop.  
  
Another round of deciphering occurred, and this time the interpretation came from a pair of twin imperatives, ordinarily designated to prevent Hektor from hurting either biologics, or himself.  
  
 _[Lack of heartbeat = WARNING. Possible death of biologic.]_  
  
But the interpretation was only partial. Something was missing from the description. Ordinarily, Hektor would have registered the death of the biologic as bad. Very bad. His programming was almost infantile that way. This was good, this was bad. Don't do bad things, don't hurt biologics. Hurting biologics is wrong.  
  
Today, however, his artificial conscious was oddly absent.  
  
Across the room, the second biologic glowed in a blur of brilliant warmth. It stood not too far away, cowering in it's place by the operating table.  


* * *

  
  
Fear was a confusing thing. Borton knew that on an instinctual level. Fear _was_ instinctual, an almost mechanical response, but it was also a rational one, perhaps because it was part of her physiology. She didn't know enough about psychology or biology to be able to break it down in a scientific way. But she knew on a very basic level that she had every right to be afraid.   
  
The pirate sat upright with a sudden jerk, and she immediately stuffed a hand into her pocket, withdrawing one of the tools she'd taken. A screwdriver with a thick plastic handle. It trembled in her shaking hand.  
  
Silently, the pirate swung his legs over the side of the operating table and stood, scanning the room with gradual, distinctly inhuman rotations of his head. Thomas stood by the door, swaying from side to side – bristling. Borton thought about calling out to him, waving him over, but she was too afraid to move. She watched as the pirate's steely gaze passed over Thomas, showing no sign of acknowledgement.  
  
It took a moment for the pirate to finally notice Borton, but when he did, he promptly raised his sword – Borton could see blotches of Cook's fresh blood trailing down the shaft – and began to stalk towards her. Until now, Borton hadn't seen one of the human-models up close like this. She had to take a moment to remind herself that the thing currently in front of her was not a real man. That, beneath the incredibly realistic human exterior, there hid a cold, mechanical mind that was likely bent on causing her an indescribable amount of harm. She shivered.  
  
The pirate was still advancing. She raised the screwdriver and held it out in front of her as a final warning, but the pirate continued to draw closer, undeterred by the threat. Just as the pirate angled his sword to slice, Borton saw a blur of motion from behind.  
  
Thomas screeched as he came forward and leapt bodily into the air. Raising his hind legs with their big, dagger-claws, he flung himself onto the back of the pirate, striking the metal hull in front of them and throwing off twin bursts of hot sparks. Thomas fell backward to the ground, hissing, and Borton screamed as the electricity exploded all around her. The pirate whirled on Thomas, face expressionless. Thomas gave a low, reptilian snarl and hopped back several feet, quickly on the defense. A faint odor of decay and acrid smoke followed the pirate as he flew at Thomas, still sizzling, and the two engaged like a pair of dueling cats – darting at one another with quick clips of metallic teeth and slices of sword tip. It was a phenomenal, surreal sort of spectacle, and Borton could scarcely believe it was happening right in front of her. A robot and a dinosaur, locked in vicious combat. Like something out of a depraved comic book.  
  
Scrambling to her feet, Borton dodged around them until she was safely out of their way, back on the other side of the room. Cook's body was laying just a few feet in front of her, still warm. He had only just stopped writhing on the floor. Spotting the opportunity, Borton was able to steal both the radio and electrometer off of Cook's utility belt. She then began moving to the door. At the threshold she gave the signal for Thomas to retreat, and saw him take a final swipe at the pirate with his left foot before backing away.  
  
In the corridor Borton discovered that Thomas had received several new gashes, smaller than those given to him by the tyrannosaur, but likely deeper thanks to the length of the pirate's sword. All that repair work for nothing. Now, Thomas dripped puddles of milk-colored liquid as he jogged beside her, down the hall and toward the control room. Not hydraulic fluid anymore, she realized. That was coolant. _Damn._ She hadn't thought to grab a replacement bag of it – why would she? And the chance to try had just been eliminated.  
  
Borton knew that, without coolant, Thomas' processors would soon overheat, but presently she couldn't be bothered with thinking about that.  
  
She turned the corner and ran face-first into Quinn's wide chest, the force of their collision causing her to nearly stab him with the screwdriver. Quinn managed to wrangle it out of her grip and pocket it for himself before she had time to argue. She spun in his arms, frantic, and he had to shake her calm again.   
  
The first words out of his mouth were "All you all right?"  
  
She gulped hard and pointed back down the corridor. "It's right behind me."  
  
Quinn was holding the tree branch. His face was scrunched into a tight grimace. "Eddie? Where –"  
  
"Dead. It got him." and she held up her hands, revealing the electrometer and the radio. "I took these."  
  
"What about the cattle-prod?" Quinn asked.  
  
Borton's face fell, stunned. She'd forgotten it.   
  
"Oh god." she gaped, feeling utterly stupid. "Oh Jesus. I – I didn't see it. He didn't use it, I don't think. I don't know. He must have dropped it or – or – oh god I don't know."  
  
"Jesus Christ." said Quinn.  
  
"Well I'm sorry!" she shouted back. "I panicked! One minute we were fine and the next thing I know he's got a fucking sword stuck in his chest! I only have so many hands. We need a radio in order to call the ship, don't we. I thought I made the right choice."  
  
Just then the pirate appeared at the end of the corridor, a dark silhouette back-lit by the bright shine of the repair bay. Quinn pushed himself in front of Borton.  
  
"Errol unlocked the medical center." he whispered. "Didn't know if you might be hurt. Power's still out there, but it's safe. He's waiting for you. So's Henry."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
Quinn held up the tree branch – "I'll be right behind you."  
  
The pirate was walking down the corridor, pace cool and calculated.  
  
"I don't even know the way." Borton urged.  
  
Thomas nudged her arm and Quinn said "Have Tom show you. I already know where it is. Just go. I'll catch up."  
  
"You're going to try and get the cattle-prod, aren't you." Borton realized. "Don't."  
  
"I'm not." Quinn smirked. "I'm gonna try and bash this fucker's ugly face in."  
  
With that, Quinn took up the branch and swung it hard at the pirate's head. Primed reflexes sent the pirate springing out of the way, dodging the blow of the branch and twirling to his left like an elegant ballerina. The pirate came at Quinn with the sword, mute and menacing, and for the briefest moment Borton felt her breath catch. Metal met wood and the next thing she knew, Quinn and the pirate were locked together in a kind of dance, struggling to pry their weapons apart. A sudden flashback of the criorhynchus stuck in the log, and not knowing what else to do, Borton screamed at Quinn.  
  
"The screwdriver!"  
  
Quinn pulled the tool from his pocket and, grunting, jammed it into the side of the pirate's neck. The pirate seemed to blank, temporarily loosing balance.  
  
The pirate let go of the sword and stumbled blindly back, toppling over his own skittering legs. He wound up on the floor in an awkward heap. A second later and he was soundlessly yanking the screwdriver out of his neck. Borton watched as the pirate brought it to his nose, studied it, and then tossed it aside. From the interior of his vest, the pirate withdrew his dirty musket, and, closing one eye, aimed the end of the musket squarely at Quinn. There was a harsh clicking sound as the pirate cocked the musket, outlandishly loud in the echoey hallway. Quinn went very still, letting the tree branch drop from his hands. The bloody sword was still attached to it.   
  
Borton's palms flew to her ears as the pirate pulled the trigger, expecting the loud bang of gunfire. Oddly enough, there wasn't any. Palms still by her head, she stared at the musket, confused. The pirate tried again, producing the same result. Nothing. Borton thought she could hear a faint beeping noise coming from the musket.  
  
Quinn started laughing. "Ha, you stupid fuck! Your powder's wet!"  
  
Unaffected by the comment, the pirate lurched forward and snatched up both the tree branch and the sword. He then carefully placed the musket back into his vest and began to right himself. Quinn took hold of Borton's hand, and once again she was running down the corridor, Thomas on her heels as the trio hastily made their way to the medical center. When they arrived, Borton glanced over her shoulder. No pirate. Had they actually managed to loose him, or had he simply given up the pursuit?  
  
She checked the electrometer and saw the blinking dot making it's way sluggishly down the pixelated grid.  
  
"It'll be here soon." she said as Quinn lead her through the open doorway.  


* * *

  
  
In the medical center, everything was stainless steel. The cup dispenser, the counter, the waste-bin. The handles of the various storage cupboards that lined the walls. All of it looked shiny and clean. Even in the ghostly flare of the floodlights.  
  
The Firdos medical center had never been a busy place. Until the system failure, work-related injuries had been incredibly rare, and guest-related injuries nearly non-existent. Firdos employed intelligent, careful people, all of whom adhered to a relatively strict set of safety guidelines. This meant that the medical center saw little action, aside from the occasional seasick or drunken tourist. Once, a pregnant woman had gone into labor in the Viking-realm and birthed her baby there. But beyond that, the medical center had mostly been used for implementing and recording the results of the drug tests taken by potential new-hires – along with the bi-annual company blood-drive.  
  
On any other day, the room would have been filled with small, noticeable noises. The drone of the Coke machine in the corner, the dripping of the sink faucet on the collected coffee mugs just under it, or the random, sputtering rumble of the specimen-refrigerator turning on. But the power was out, and the room was black. To Borton, it felt vastly empty, even after spotting McCullough and Irvine waiting near the back by a small, round table. She found the silence deafening. All that was left to hear was the combined breathing of the group members, and the rasp of Thomas' toe-claws as they tickled the floor where he walked.   
  
There were a few disease-related posters on the walls, the sort of thing found in a high school nurse's office. And a rack stacked with Firdos pamphlets explaining all the fun activities the park had to offer. At least there were no bodies. No more dead faces peering up at her with wide, glassy eyes. Borton was thankful for that.  
  
She came into the medical center like a zombie and broke free from Quinn's hand, only to be encircled by McCullough and Irvine as they rushed up to bombard her with questions. Dazed, she shoved past them and went over to the refrigerator. The interior was barren, save for a single jar of unappealing, yellow liquid. She moved on to the Coke machine, pressed a couple of the buttons, played with the coin-release, praying for caffeine, for sugar, for nourishment of some kind. No good. Although the machine was still plugged in, it stood in front of her, dark and useless without electricity.  
  
The problem of how to get a soda can out of the machine expanded to fill her mind, crowding out all other thoughts. Eventually, the fear of the pirate subsided, leaving behind a growing sense of frustration. She considered kicking the Coke machine. Suddenly, bursts of angry, terrified energy wanted to send her feet slamming against the happy 'Drink Coke! You'll Love it!' slogan, but knowing how immature it would make her look in front of the men – what a futile gesture it would be – made her decide against it.  
  
During the span of Borton's career, she had seen a number of people (directors and actors, a few stage hands) get properly frustrated, and they always behaved the same way. Shouting orders, screaming their criticism at anyone and everyone. They never understood the technical issues, and they thought that screaming was the way to make things happen. And maybe it was, if you were shouting at your assistant to get you a latte. But screaming didn't make any difference at all to the problems that Borton faced. The Coke machine didn't care if it was screamed at. The power network didn't care if it was screamed at. Technical systems were completely indifferent to explosive human emotion. Borton knew well enough that screaming and kicking, having a tantrum, was counterproductive.  
  
A vision of her father, consoling her when one of the robots shorted out on set. His big, strong hands on her arms while she bit back hot tears of embarrassment. The cast and crew behind her, looking on impatiently.  
  
Her father's voice rang clear in her head –  _Could be worse, Jo._  
  
Just then Thomas was scratching at her elbow, "Are you all right, Joanna?"  
  
"Hungry." she replied, forcing the memories away. "And thirsty. I'm having a crappy day, Tom. Could really use a batting cage."  
  
Behind her, Quinn was asking if McCullough could get the medical center doors to close and lock. Both men had to push the doors shut, but neither could figure out how to get the electromagnetic lock to function, so they settled for piling several plastic chairs up in front of the entrance instead. As if that would truly stop an intruder.  
  
At the back of the room were a series of cots, each one separated by a thin, blue curtain. Giving up on the Coke machine, Borton went over and had a seat on one of them.   
  
"I've got the radio, if anybody cares." she said dismally, addressing no one in particular. She then set the radio and electrometer down on the neighboring cot, removed her baseball cap and leaned back to rest. As soon as her head hit the linen canvas, a wave of exhaustion struck her, and her eyes shut automatically. Thomas sank down onto the floor beside her, nestling his head up against the cot as best he could.  
  
"Did you get the cattle-prod, too?" she heard Irvine ask from the other side of the room. He sounded eagerly hopeful. She ignored him, focusing her attention elsewhere.  
  
From the medical bay entrance, McCullough was peaking out between the doors. Apparently, the pirate was right on the other side.  
  
"Oh god." Irvine said, sinking into a corner. "We're trapped."  
  
"Hold on, I'll try and get a better look at him." McCullough said. "He's got hid sword, and the tree branch. Wait. Wait a minute. I don't believe it. I can't believe it. It's the man-eater." he gasped.  
  
Borton popped one eye open and glanced in the direction of the entrance. She saw that McCullough was in the middle of trying to explain the nick-name to Quinn.  
  
"The dread-pirate Hektor." he was saying, sounding half-amazed. "Terror of the seven seas? From the Pirate-realm? He's right out there. I mean I really can't believe it. Out of all the robots in the park – the bloody man-eater's at our door."  
  
"Can he get in?" Irvine asked. "Is he going to get in?"  
  
"Doesn't look like it. If he could, he would have by now, I think." McCullough guessed. He began to narrate the pirate's movements. "He's looking in. He can see us. He's drawn his gun. He's trying to shoot through the door. Doesn't he know that won't work? You hear that beeping? It's coming from the gun. You see, the guns can't fire if they're aimed at warm bodies. It's one of the safety features here, built right into the gun. Designed to prevent dangerous incidents. Bit redundant now, I'd say. What's this? He's put the gun away. He's trying to fit the sword through the door. Ah – won't fit. Ummm, he's just standing there at the moment. Not doing much. Okay, now he's walking away again. He's heading to the end of the hall. He's gone around the corner."  
  
Borton rolled the other way as her midsection squirmed in a cramp. She was so hungry she was beginning to feel woozy.  
  
"Joanna?" Thomas checked.  
  
"I'm fine." she lied.  
  
She had made the mistake before of spending hours in the studio neglecting food in favor of finishing a project on time. The outcome was always the same. She wound wind up feeling weak, groggy – like she’d spent too long under a sun-lamp. She felt that way now. The morning’s exertions had drained her, and she had nothing to replenish herself with. She twisted on the cot and stared ahead at the Coke machine, letting her contempt for it fester.  
  
"Would you like me to retrieve food for you, Joanna?" Thomas inquired kindly.  
  
"Probably not a good idea to leave the medical center." warned Borton. "The pirate's out there."  
  
Thomas craned his neck, pointing his snout at one of the cupboards above the counter. "I may be able to find something for you here."  
  
While Thomas searched, Borton crossed her arms and pressed against the inner balls of each wrist with the opposite hand, utilizing an old acupuncture trick a makeup artist had once shown her, until she began to feel slightly more coherent. She took a moment to reflect on Cook's death. Before rousing the dread-pirate Hektor, it had been more or less established that the group would wait the two days for the supply ship to arrive, spending that time underground until they received a docking signal from the crew, and perhaps even trying to reestablish other ways of contact in the meantime. At least, that was the impression Borton got. Of course, this was back when Cook had still been alive. Back when they had free reign of the control compound. Now the only man who had real working knowledge of Firdos was gone, and their roaming territory was greatly reduced thanks to Hektor. It was a sobering reality, as was the notion that they were now completely on their own at Firdos. She had no idea how the others were handling it, or what they were going to do. She didn't have the energy to guess.  
  
A cheerful bark from Thomas – "I've found something."  
  
It turned out that the second to last cupboard contained a small, handheld fire-extinguisher, along with a rudimentary first-aid kit which Thomas promptly gave to McCullough. The last cupboard held articles from blood-drives past. Needles, syringes, cotton swabs, fresh gauze for Irvine, and a box of outdated oatmeal cookies. These Thomas brought over to Borton. Although they were stale, she happily wolfed down the first three. It took most of her willpower to keep from eating all of them at once. When she'd had what she considered to be a moderate helping (only as much as she needed to keep the fog from clouding her brain), she gave the rest back to Thomas and said "We need to ration those. You can be in charge of that. Spread them around, yeah, but don't be too liberal."  
  
While the others ate, Borton allowed herself to properly assess the devastation. For the first time since that morning she was surprised to find herself dwelling not on Cook, but on Abrams. The picture of the tyrannosaurus rearing over him bloomed in her head. She saw it's jaws open and remembered hearing the awful, awful screaming.  
  
 _No, not that. Anything but that._  
  
Borton pinched her eyes shut as a mental road block went up, and she shifted uncomfortably on the cot. After a while she relaxed again, wondering if Abrams had a family. Children who might miss him when they learned that he wouldn't be coming back from Firdos. Truthfully, he hadn't seemed like the family-type. Neither had Cook, for that matter. Borton wasn't sure why, but she just couldn't imagine either of them with a wife, let alone kids. She tried to look back on the brief moments she'd spent with Abrams. He hadn't struck her as the type to lead a lonely life, but there she was, assuming that he had. It might have been to do with the fact that she knew he was a traveling man, and most traveling men didn't have relations. That was a stereotype. He could well have had over a dozen children, and for all she knew he could have been the world's best father to them, even despite his stand-offish attitude. Borton lingered on Abrams' fictional babies, all crying out for their father, and found it a little too painful to stomach. She let it drop quickly out of her mind like the heavy thing that it was, and moved on to something else.  
  
She spent the next several minutes mulling over who out there might miss her. There were her fans, of course, and her effects team. A handful of interns, one or two producers. Working associates who might worry, but only because of who she was. She frowned. What about her own relatives, or lack thereof?  
  
Borton's father had started off as a native of Syracuse, upstate New York, and moved out to Hollywood in his mid-twenties with a woman named Erica – her mother. Erica had left some time during the period when Borton's father was first entering into recognizable fame. Borton had been exactly one year old, and since then she had thought very little about the abandonment. Her father wound up filling the void left by her mother quite well.  
  
Borton stretched on the cot, tracing the routes of her family tree as if it was there in front of her in the form of an illustrated chart. She never knew her mother's siblings. Her father had just the one brother – Robert, a pilot in the United States air-force. He had been stationed in Spain nearly all of her life. She had only ever met him once, when she was very little, at a family reunion shortly before the death of her grandparents. Thinking back on it, she found she could not entirely remember Uncle Robert, or her grandparents for that matter. Other than them, there was no one.  
  
Tired of brooding over such a depressing topic, she quickly sat back up and took hold of the radio. She flipped the switch – no feedback. She had anticipated as much, but she found it strange to hear absolutely nothing coming from the speaker. No hissing static, no high-pitched whine. Nothing to indicate that the radio was actually on.  
  
Her voice rang through the room.  
  
“Gentleman,” she said tersely, “I think we’ve got an issue with the radio.”  
  
Quinn was the first to respond. “What?”  
  
“It’s dying, and I don’t know how to charge it.” she explained, turning the channel-frequency knob on the side of the radio as she spoke.  
  
“What’s going on?” Irvine asked, approaching Borton’s cot.  
  
“The radio’s about to kick the bucket.” Quinn replied.  
  
Irvine’s eyes widened. “No. That can't happen. How are we supposed to signal the boat if we don’t have a working radio?”  
  
McCullough turned to Thomas – “You wouldn’t happen to have a two-way radio application hardwired into your mainframe, by any chance, would you?” he asked the dinosaur politely. Thomas shook his head, and McCullough murmured a small “No, I thought not.”  
  
Borton tossed the radio aside with an angry huff and shoved her face into her hands. “I should have grabbed the cattle-prod. Fuck. I’m such a moron.” she grumbled through her fingers.  
  
As Thomas consoled her, Irvine returned to his spot at the opposite side of the room. Quinn was left on his own, talking with McCullough.  


* * *

  
  
Michael Quinn was not a man disposed to unnecessary panic. He knew how to recognize dangerous situations, how to properly evaluate them, and how to stay calm when unexpected outcomes occurred. Cook's death had been unexpected, but it hadn't affected the overall plan. The death of the radio, however, meant that they would have to think of a new survival strategy.  
  
Leaning against the counter, Quinn began to take stock of the situation. They had no link to the outside world, hardly any food, and no bathrooms. He'd experienced a similar situation before. Once, while digging just outside of Gilbert, Arizona, Quinn had found himself stuck in his jeep for nearly a day and a half when a particularly fierce sandstorm kicked up. He had sustained himself on only the water in his canteen, and while he was confident he could do that again here at Firdos – he pictured drinking whatever luke-warm water he could force out of the nearby sink faucet – he didn't entirely know if the others could as well.  
  
Not only that, but the group was also lacking basic weapons, which meant that leaving the medical center to hunt down more food was currently out of the question. So was self protection. Quinn frowned, re-calculating. His eyes flicked around the room, trying to find a suitable example of something they might be able to utilize in case the pirate did manage to somehow get inside. The list he came up with was small, and included the plastic chairs from the table (half of which were in front of the door), and the needles from the cupboard. Hardly the kind of things you could use to disable a robot as dangerous as the dread-pirate Hektor.   
  
Momentarily, Quinn considered using the fire extinguisher. There was the option of brandishing it like a club, but the small red container was no larger than a soda bottle. At worst, it would leave a dent in Hektor's head without doing any other real damage.  
  
There was Thomas, but Quinn got the impression that the dinosaur had already done battle with the pirate and lost. That, and he didn't entirely like the idea of entrusting his life to a robot that (for all he knew) still had the potential to break down.   
  
"So what's the status?" McCullough ventured.  
  
Quinn gave him an honest answer. "We’re screwed.”  
  
“I see. You know, we could always leave the medical center.” McCullough suggested lightly. "Try and make our way to a kitchen or a cafeteria. Some place more fortified, with food? Maybe find a way to charge the radio?"  
  
“We could try," agreed Quinn, "But I wouldn't risk it right now. That robot of yours is still out there, and I’m fresh out of sticks to hit him with. We go out there too soon and we'd be sitting ducks.”  
  
“Then what do we do?”  
  
“Only thing we can. Lie low." Quinn replied. "Wait for his batteries to run out. I mean, they’ve got to, sooner or later. Right?”  
  
"Not necessarily." said McCullough.  
  
Batteries were a complicated thing at Firdos. Different robots required different kinds, and a robot's battery life depended not only on their battery type, but also the robot's make-up and active routine. In the same way a man never truly knew the precise condition of his heart, most Firdos robots had no sense of their battery life, and were made to rely on control room technicians to monitor it. If a robot's battery life was low, they were ultimately told to seek out the nearest charging station. There were charging stations littered around each realm, camouflaged so as not to disrupt the atmosphere for vacationers. Other robots – specifically the newer ones – were equipped with the ability to self-charge, which made motoring their battery life more or less redundant. However, these self-charging batteries still had an expiration date, and again, no robot was aware of their battery's expiration date.  
  
When it came to the intricacies of the Firdos robots, McCullough knew a surprising amount, for a tourist. Unfortunately, he did not know which battery type the dread-pirate Hektor had been equipped with, or when it might expire.  
  
"The average battery life of a Firdos robot is pretty low, if I recall correctly." McCullough explained, thinking. "But this is no ordinary robot. This is the dread-pirate Hektor, and he's been around for ages. Since the park opened, in fact. He's probably been upgraded a billion times since then. It wouldn't surprise me if he's not only got a self-charging battery, but the best one in the place.”  
  
“Yeah, but he can’t last longer than two whole days, can he?” Quinn argued. "Not after I got him with the screwdriver like that. It was right in the neck." he added, pointing to the space between his ear and throat for reference.  
  
McCullough shrugged. “He's not like Tom or the others. He was built to take a beating. He could last the rest of the week, for all we know. Damaged or not. There’s really no way of telling.”  
  
Quinn clicked his tongue and sighed. “So, what you’re saying is – even if we had ample supplies in here, even if we could last two whole days with the radio still working – that robot would be up and walking around by the time the ship got here?”  
  
McCullough shrugged again, and Quinn swore under his breath.  
  
"Then we're full-on stuck." he surmised with a scowl. "That pisses me off."  


* * *

  
  
By the cot, Thomas slid his scaly chin along the inside of Borton's wrist, careful and affectionate.  
  
"I'm sorry, Joanna." he said. It didn't seem to help her, so he did something drastic. "If it weren't for me, Mr. Cook would still be alive."  
  
Borton blanked. _Pardon?_ Thomas kept talking.  
  
"The dread-pirate Hektor would still be safely imprisoned in the repair bay, if I had not allowed myself to become damaged. I am so very, very sor–"  
  
Borton's anger flared.  
  
"Stop apologizing." she snapped. "It was my idea to go to the repair bay in the first place, remember. I could've let you blee–leak. But I didn't. I was the one who coaxed Eddie into fixing you, and I was the one who forgot the damn cattle-prod. It wasn't your fault. It was mine."  
  
A beat.  
  
More gently – "Look. I'm to blame. Doesn't matter anymore, now, anyway."  
  
"Why did you insist on fixing me?" Thomas asked her.  
  
Borton felt the side of face throb.  
  
"It's the same thing I told Cook. We need you."  
  
"You need me?" Thomas asked keenly.  
  
" _We_ do, yeah." Borton emphasized.  
  
For a while the medical center was silent again, and with no one speaking Borton found it to be a forbidding place. Bunker-like. A fox-hole for tired, loosing soldiers, and that was what she felt like. She let her eyes close again and wondered if it would be inappropriate to doze off. Only for a couple of minutes. After all, she deserved a nap after the morning she'd had, and it wasn't like she'd be missing anything if she slept for a little while.  
  
She was cozy, with Thomas' large head positioned right against her arm like that. The glow of his eyes cut sharply through the dark, quaint and comforting. The green shine made her think of the old moon-shaped nightlight that used to neighbor her childhood bed. The one her father bought her when she was only six. Tentative fingers reached out to pet the curve of Thomas' neck, pebbly like a football, and she felt his gullet quiver in response. Just then an idea poked at the edge of her mind. Something having to do with Thomas' eyes.  
  
Pieces of memory floated up to the surface. The chirp of jungle insects, distant bird calls. Tall, gray necks swaying against the clouds, and gray heads poking over the treetops. The gentle eyes of the animatronic brachiosaurus, long-lashed and cow-like, following the arc of her arm as she waved it back and forth on the first day of the tour. What had she told the group about it? About the eyes of the brachiosaurus? The inner ocular system was likely equipped with an advanced pair of motion sensors.  
  
 _It's a great way to save power if you think about it . . . The larger robots don't come online until they detect motion of some kind._  
  
That was right, yes. She remembered now. It was a design based on conserving battery life. And, of course, less movement meant less maintenance. It was certainly a cheaper way of doing things. But Thomas had something different, a more advanced design. His system was probably based on multi-sensory perception. _Not just audio and visually attuned, but touch, taste, maybe even body heat._  
  
Body heat. Like the pirate's gun. There was something else, something connected to that.  
  
McCullough by the door –  what had he said? _You see, the guns can't fire if they're aimed at warm bodies._  
  
More, though. There was more. In the jungle again, on the tour. _I know the zombies and the vikings rely on temperature to attack . . . If it's warm, they'll go after it, but they'll be extra careful not to hurt it. That's how they interpret what's human and what's not._  
  
"That's it." Borton murmured, too soft for even Thomas to hear.  
  
The idea was brilliant and wonderful, and she thought she ought to tell the men, make an announcement. She would do that right away. In just a couple of minutes. It was a good idea, a great idea, and it would fix everything.  
  
The train of thought was interrupted by a yawn, and forgotten in the grogginess that followed. Thomas yawned too, pink mouth open and body flexing in an imitation of Borton. She was asleep when he brought his tongue to her cheek for the second time to numb the welt that had risen there.   


* * *

  
  
It was nearly three o’clock when Borton woke back up. The disorienting haze that followed was brief.    
  
Bleary-eyed, she peered over the edge of the cot only to find a puddle of white liquid pooling on the floor around Thomas. It wasn't a large puddle, but nevertheless, it was worrying how rapidly he appeared to be loosing coolant. He didn't seem bothered by it – yet. But she had no idea how long he could go on functioning normally while in that kind of condition, or what she would do once the coolant loss began to affect him. The lack of information made it nearly impossible to predict. How well did Firdos machines operate without the full amount of coolant? How much coolant had Thomas started out with in the first place? How much had he already lost? She had no way of measuring.  
  
Feeling uneasy, Borton rolled onto her side, put her baseball cap back on and took a look around. The medical center was still pitch black, barely lit by the floodlights. She spotted Quinn and McCullough sitting at the table in the middle of the room, talking softly. Their eyes were glued to the electrometer.  
  
“Hey?” she said.  
  
“Ah, welcome back." McCullough replied.  
  
Borton nodded at the electrometer. "What's our friend up to?"  
  
"Patrolling." said McCullough. "He disappeared off the range of the grid a little while back. He was gone for about five minutes. No clue where he went.”  
  
“Think we could sneak out if he does it again?” Borton inquired.  
  
McCullough looked at Quinn for confirmation.  
  
“Don’t know." Quinn finally answered. "We’ve been watching him for the last hour, looking for a pattern or a loop we could take advantage of. So far his moves are pretty erratic.”  
  
Borton pondered for a moment and then asked “Could we chance it anyway? Make a run for the cattle-prod?”  
  
She wanted to add _And some spare coolant_ , but she kept her mouth shut.  
  
Quinn scratched his chin. "I wouldn't. The way I see it, who's to say he's not heading over to the repair bay whenever he goes off-grid? He could set a trap for us."  
  
Borton frowned and shifted into a sitting position on the cot. She felt pierced and lonesome in the darkened medical center crowded with men. The air, while cool, had been saturated with the stink of damp perspiration. A sour mixture of deodorant and what must have been glass-cleaner. The atmosphere it's self was blatantly stale.

A little ways away, Irvine was at the back corner of the room, crying again. These were not the heavy, shaking sobs that had come pouring out of him earlier. These were bouts of weary sniveling, the tears of a man who felt alone and lost. As he sat, stooped over himself on his cot, he began to mumble in a tiny, cracking voice.  
  
"Anna," he was saying. "Anna."  
  
Borton stretched and eventually stood up. Gingerly, she moved to sit across from him on the adjacent cot. Thomas followed and positioned himself at her feet like a dog. Irvine didn't seem to notice either of them.  
  
"I-If I get out of here, I'm going to call her." Irvine sniffed, eyes red. He had his hands clasped tightly together, and he was staring dully into space. "I'm going to tell her I love her. God, I need to do that. Please let me get out of here so I can do that."  
  
Soon Quinn and McCullough came over. Irvine was still mumbling, and they huddled around him like he was emanating some kind of warmth.  
  
"I love her. So much." he finished, sounding broken.  
  
"Yeah, man. Yeah." Quinn said. "If I ever get out of here, I'm having my brother over for a barbecue. We'll build a bonfire, and he'll bring beer. Lots of beer."  
  
Another long pause. Borton began to wonder what she would do if she ever go out of Firdos alive. It was bad enough that she was thinking _if_ and not _when_ , but she supposed all she had to look forward to was getting back to work on the _Moby Dick_ project. At least Harold Nigh had paid her before she left.  
  
"Bit bleak, all this talk. Isn't it?" McCullough piped up, holding his arms behind his chest. General Patton to the troops. "You have no idea how to be survivors. When I get out, I'm going to make a video game. First-person shooter, and you can bet your asses level one is going to involve killing robots with bazookas. It'll be an instant hit, just you wait. And she can direct the film tie-in." he added, giving Borton a sly wink.  
  
She smiled up at him, and it was then that something occurred to her. _Levels_ , she repeated to herself.  
  
"Errol, how many realms above us?" she asked sharply. "Four, right?"  
  
"If you include the Phrehistoric-realm." he replied. "Why?"  
  
She stood up and began to pace. The others watched her with expressions of concern and curiosity.  
  
"It's like a game." she declared. "An arcade game, or – or a video game. Level one is dinosaurs. Level two is zombies. Level three is vikings. Level four is pirates. Then we're home. Hell, it's almost like baseball. All we have to do is make a home-run and we're out of here." she described enthusiastically.  
  
The others stared at her.  
  
"What are you proposing here, Jo?" Quinn asked with raised eyebrows.  
  
"I'm saying we walk out of here. Climb out, level by level." she explained, confident.  
  
"Right." Quinn said, sounding dubious. "And, uh, how would we do that exactly?"  
  
Borton didn't answer strait away, still trying to plot out the details. She felt like her brain was on fire, like a feverish energy had lit her up from the inside out. The emptiness of her stomach, the pain of her cheek, all the discomfort was instantly forgotten in the wake of this reinvigorating second wind.  
  
"We use the emergency exits." Borton said at last, stopping in the center of the room.  
  
"You mean, go back up through the jungle?" Irvine shot back. "You _want_ to go back up wh-where the T-rex and that – that flying one are? You're crazy."  
  
Quinn's voice was filled with gentle dominance. "Jo, the only emergency exit we found took us down here. How can you be sure there's even a way back up to the next realm from the jungle?"  
  
Before Borton could respond, Thomas perked up. He informed the group that all Firdos realms were equipped with two individual emergency exits, just as Borton had suspected. These exits were used primarily by the collection staff for the nightly round-up of damaged and malfunctioning robots. There was an exit hatch by the entrance into every realm, and another located at the highest point of each realm (usually the rooftop of a hidden maintenance shed). The first would ultimately lead down into the control center, while the other would lead up into the realm directly above it. The one that lead back up into the Prehistoric-realm could be located at the other end of the control compound, by the server room, but Borton had already guessed that.  
  
Quickly, she drew a map in her mind, picturing a cylindrical tube, filled with layers of sedimentary dirt, each band a different color. There were two holes on either side of each layer at inclining angles, and she imagined an ant crawling from bottom to surface in a zig-zag pattern, emerging from one end and crossing to the next hole to climb up. _Piece of cake._  
  
"Well there you go." said Borton. "Tom knows the way. He can show us how to get out of here. Can't you, Tom?"  
  
Thomas replied with a vigorous screech. "I am programmed with the exact knowledge of all emergency exit locations, and would be happy to chaperone you safely out of the park."  
  
"So what you're suggesting here is – " Irvine began, suddenly angry, "– is that we risk our lives going through not one but four separate levels of robot-infested hell in order to leave this place?"  
  
Borton fixed Irvine with a forbidding glare.  
  
"Look, either we climb out of here and live, or we die down here." she said bluntly, trying to rouse the others into action. "Nobody's going to come for us down here. Even if we manage to alert the supply ship somehow, what do you think will happen? They won't come down to get us. They'll probably expect to see us on the shoreline or something. Man, even if they do come down, they'll have to go through those same four levels first, and then back up with us. In our case, the only hard part is going up."  
  
"B-But we're not prepared." Irvine insisted. "Thanks to you we've got n-no cattle-prod. Nothing to defend ourselves with. And did you forget who's waiting just outside the door?"  
  
Thomas screeched again, rising to his feet. "I will distract the dread-pirate Hektor while you go to the repair bay to retrieve the cattle-prod." he announced.  
  
"No." Borton blurted. Then again, softer with more self-control – "No. He could take you out. What happens then? We might get the cattle-prod, sure, but without you, we've got no map to the surface."  
  
"I believe I can efficiently dispense with the dread-pirate Hektor." Thomas clucked, indignant, and puffed his chest out like an offended pigeon.  
  
"That may be, Tom, but the fact remains," McCullough countered, "If we're going to try and do this, we simply can't afford to let anything happening to you."  
  
On the cot, Irvine continued to voice his uncertainty. "You're all out of your minds. If we're going to try? If?" he said snidely. "It won't work."  
  
"It could. Never know until we try, eh?" McCullough said thoughtfully.  
  
Irvine shook his head, refusing to listen. "Y-You aren't being practical here. Let's say we manage to get past the pirate, or – or _defeat_ him. What happens when we meet back up with the rex? Or any of the other s-stuff that's waiting for us? Hmm, what's up there again? Oh, right. Zombies. Viking Gods. And –" He gave an insincere chuckle, "–more pirates. Of course. How could I forget? D-Do any of you really think a cattle-prod's going to defend against all that?"  
  
"We can avoid ninety precent of those other robots by paying attention to the electrometer." said Quinn. "Those realms are wide-open places, and all we'll have to do is go around the robots the electrometer picks up. They'll never know we were there. It's only the pirate we have to get by."  
  
"So it's agreed? We're going up?" McCullough questioned.  
  
"We'll need to get a hold of that cattle-prod." Quinn said brusquely.     
  
"But you c-can't get to the cattle-prod." Irvine argued. "It's in the repair bay. And we've already established that there's no way of getting past the pirate. We have to s-stay here." he finished, triumphant.  
  
Borton wouldn't let it lie. "Come on. There must be a way to get by him without resorting to using Tom as a diversion. Isn't there something here in the medical center we can use to, like, attack the pirate?"  
  
"There really isn't." Quinn confessed.  
  
McCullough pointed at the sink – "What about those mugs? We could fill them with water, throw them at Hektor? It's not a lot, but it's a start."  
  
Borton envisioned the four of them running down the corridor in a stampede, armed with mugs of water. She saw shards of wet ceramic exploding against the pirate's face. His sturdy, waterproofed face.  
  
 _Shit_ , thought Borton.  
  
Then again, there was always the hole Quinn that had ripped into the pirate's neck. Although, it would take a very accurate shot. She doubted any of them could hit it, and even if one of them managed to – even if some of the water got into the hole and seeped through to the framework beneath – exactly how much water would it take to fry an entire robot? A robot that was built for aquatic environments? Quickly, Borton did the math in her head. If each of them carried two full mugs – but wait. That was assuming they would be able to get enough water out of the tap. She shook her head, trying to imagine the most favorable scenario. Plenty of water, no problem there, so four people meant eight mugs-worth and –  
  
"Never work." she decided out loud. "It'd be like throwing water balloons at a submarine."  
  
"In theory, we could wait until he goes off-grid again." McCullough said.  
  
"Yeah, but who knows how long that could be." said Quinn. Cautiously, he approached Thomas and dipped a finger into the trail of milky white goo that was dripping down the dinosaur's scaly hide. Half-dry, the coolant was tacky and warm. It stuck to Quinn's finger-tip. "I'm no expert, but it looks like Tom's in bad shape. We want to make a move, we need to do it sooner rather than later."  
  
"Run for it?" Borton put forward, hopeful.  
  
Irvine scowled – "S-Screw that. We'd get caught for sure."  
  
Borton rubbed the back of her neck, stumped. The rest of the plan fit together so easily. It was only this one piece that was giving her trouble. She had to find a solution.  
  
"We've got to get by him." she said, exasperated. "We've got to."  
  
"We can't." Irvine told her, reiterating. "We should just stay put."  
  
Here the conversation died away, and for a short while Borton stood in silent thought, looking rather statuesque in her place by the table. Making an educated guess, she concluded that the pirate – while certainly threatening, and relatively clever – really wasn't anything special. Just another basic Firdos animatronic, and while he may have been slightly more robust than the machines she was used to working with, she was confident she could figure out his weak-spot.  
  
Concentrating, she made a mental list of everything she already knew about the pirate, beginning with what McCullough had initially told her on the hovercraft.  
  
For starters, the pirate was built to fight. Fight, and loose. Subtracting the "loose" part, she was stuck with a machine that was strong, fast, and knew how to use a sword. Speaking of which, it seemed the pirate preferred using his weapons rather than attacking with blunt force. Guns and swords, from what she had seen. She wondered how the robot would respond if he were stripped of them, but attempting something like that was too dangerous to contemplate. Moving on to the robot's make-up, she figured it consisted of the common metal endoskeleton containing general wiring, hydraulic lubrication, a coolant and heat exhaust track, a battery (possibly at the back of the neck), and a processor (usually located in the head). The battery and processor could have worked as potential weak-spots, if she just so happened to be carrying a powerful magnet on her. As it was, she was forced to think of something else.  
   
 _Focus on the individual system parts_ , she told herself.  
  
Almost every robot, even those with multi-axis servo drive, would probably have pneumatic functions of some sort or another, if only for wrist rotation. She assumed the pirate had to have a pneumatic system since, without it, any kind of pressure-adjusted gripping of parts (like holding on to a sword, for example) would have been impossible.

  
The only issue with pneumatic systems was that, if a small amount of moisture managed to get transported to the pneumatic valves and actuators, oxidation or build-up of contamination would inevitably occur and eventually cause the valves to stick to the actuators – meaning movement would bind and fail intermittently. Most of the robots she and her father had built over the years had been pneumatic, to an extent, but they had never built one with an automatic moisture evacuation system before. Borton wondered if the pirate had one. Odd were that he probably did. When it came to a robot as supposedly old as Hektor, the engineers would have wanted to ensure that moisture didn't get drawn into the system and cause problems, or even a short-out, and they would have gone about preventing this occurrence in the most efficient, cost-effective way possible.

_What about wiring wear?_

Wiring that continually rubbed against a robot during cycling, or that got bound up inside the cable tracks, would eventually wear and fail. Unfortunately, Borton had no way of checking the pirate's wiring without turning him off and opening him up.

_Okay, the screwdriver hole then._

This was less a matter of damage to the endoskeleton, wiring or even circuitry, but more a matter of potential leaking. Either coolant, or general lubrication.

She had observed the pirate pull the screwdriver out of his neck and throw it away. The wound hadn't been terrifically deep, judging by the angle the screwdriver had sat, and she didn't think she had witnessed any blue or white liquid oozing from the wound once the screwdriver was absent. Although, there could have been a delay. The dread-pirate Hektor could have been leaking hydraulic fluid right that very moment, in the same way Thomas had.

With most self-enclosed robots, lubrication occurred continually as the robot moved. However, if there were surfaces over which the robot did not move on a regular basis, those areas would need to be lubricated either manually or by periodically programming movement that allowed the automatic system to lubricate them. Rack-and-pinion systems tended to automatically lubricate from a reservoir, which needed to be replaced – usually on an annual basis.  As she had seen with Thomas, lack of hydraulic lubrication in the Firdos robots apparently resulted in the seizing up of the servo-motors.  
If that was the case, it was simply a matter of waiting for the pirate's body to lock similarly. But there was no way of telling when (or if) that would happen, and Borton already knew that they didn't have time to waste. Not with Thomas draining coolant so quickly.

The task of determining the pirate's weakness seemed hopeless, but Borton went on trying – completely neglecting the fact that the pirate had been found in the repair bay. If anything, he had already forgone a recent round of maintenance and was entirely up to code, save for the screwdriver wound.  
  
Going backward, Borton thought about how the pirate compared with the rest of the robots she'd come across at Firdos. The majority of the robots functioned in fundamental ways. They all relied on structured programming to perceive their environment, and interface with it. Take the brachiosaurus, for example. ( _brachiosaurus, that's important isn't it?_ ) The enormous robot had been designated to react to movement.  
  
Unlike the pirate.  
  
Based on the way the pirate had gone after Cook and herself, he wasn't attuned to movement. Both of Borton and Cook had been standing perfectly still in the repair bay at the time of the assault, but the pirate had targeted them both. The same thing had occurred in the Prehistoric-realm with the tyrannosaur. Borton and McCullough had been relatively motionless when the tyrannosaur had cornered them in the field outside the hotel. Why had it done that?  
  
Borton did her best to focus on what had taken place in the repair bay. Everything had happened so quickly, she was struggling to grasp a clear picture. Cook had been by the table, she had been at the back, and Thomas – where had Thomas been? Over by the doorway, in the hall. The pirate had looked right past him. How come? Too big of an adversary? Perhaps the pirate hadn't wanted to take on something it wasn't sure it could beat. But no. Borton had already seen that this wasn't the case. After Thomas attacked, the pirate had been more than willing to reciprocate.    
  
The question remained. Why had the pirate singled her out over Thomas?  
  
Borton began to pace again, but the energy behind it was different. Something poked at the recesses of her mind, something familiar that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Finally, just as she was about to dismiss her plan of escape entirely, the thought broke through – lucid and intrusive and demanding of her attention.  
  
She turned to Thomas.  
  
"Tom, you see heat, don't you. That's your primary mode of, um, of sight. Would it be safe to say that's accurate?"  
  
The dinosaur's three-fingered hand reached up to scratch just under his neck, giving him a pensive quality. "I am equipped with Firdos-brand thermal imaging detectors for visual input." he said, flashing his reptilian eyes at her.  
  
 _That's it_ , thought Borton. _That's why the pirate didn't attack Thomas in the repair bay._  
  
It was true that all machines gave off a certain amount of heat, and Thomas was no different. But did Thomas get as hot as a human being might? Probably not. If anything, his body temperature would either be much higher, or much lower than that of a standard human being. And if the pirate's way of separating human beings from other warm, moving objects meant that the human being in question had to register in-between a certain set of temperatures, then Thomas would never have fit the criteria.  
  
Once again, McCullough's words echoed through her head.  
  
 _If it's warm, they'll go after it . . ._  
  
All at once it made perfect sense as to why both the pirate and the tyrannosaur had only gone after Borton. Both machines had identified her as a human, and to them, all humans were potential quarry, but because the safety programming was corrupt their artificial urge to kill was no longer curbed.  
   
"Oh. My. God." Borton breathed, realizing. "Oh my god!"  
  
"What is it?" McCullough asked her, startled.  
  
She gave no indication that she heard him, and instead went strait over to the cupboard above the sink.  
  
"I'm an idiot. I'm a gigantic fucking moron." she continued, gloriously back on track.  
  
"Jo," McCullough tried, "What are you–"  
  
From the cupboard she grabbed the fire extinguisher and held it up for the group members to view.  
  
"This!" she exclaimed. "This is how we get past him!"  
  
Silence. She shook the canister gleefully.  
  
"Don't you get it? Can't you see?"  
  
Borton waited for a response. Crickets chirped. She took a quick second to break it down for them.  
  
“The big bots, like the brachiosaurus or the triceratops, are built with motion sensors, so they only come online when they see motion." she stated. "This helps them save power, yeah? Plus, it cuts down on the amount of repairs they need. With me so far? Good. So, the big robots have motion sensors. But the the little bots – and even the medium sized ones, like the T-rex – apparently they rely on heat-vision. For them it isn’t a matter of coming online, because they’re always online. They’re always active. So the engineers built them with a more evolved way of distinguishing everything they’d be interacting with.”  
  
McCullough was smiling. "By god, that's exceptional."  
  
"What is?" Irvine said.  
  
McCullough was laughing. "The pirate. His visual acuity is based on heat."  
  
“So?” Irvine replied. “That doesn’t change our predicament. We're s-still right where we were five minutes ago."  
  
"Henry, wake up. If the pirate can see heat then maybe we can exploit that." Quinn remarked, beginning to understand.  
  
"I already have." Borton revealed, referring to the fire extinguisher.  
  
The men collected around the small red canister.  
  
Fire extinguishers containing agents such as Co2 or FE-36 (chemicals known to remove heat from the combustion zone) were generally labeled ‘clean’ extinguishers, because the agents used rarely left any residue after discharge. Such fire extinguishers were ideal for places containing sensitive electronic materials. Reading the set of directions printed along the back of the canister, Borton ascertained that Co2 was a gaseous agent that displaced oxygen on contact with fire. Because of this, it was not intended for class A fires – fires consisting of ordinary combustibles such as paper, plastic, wood, or fabric – as the high-pressure cloud of gas could scatter burning materials. Likewise, it was not suitable for use on fires containing their own oxygen source, metals or cooking media. And while the spray could be successful if used on a person on fire, such actions were usually cautioned against as direct contact with the chemical could cause suffocation and frostbite.  
  
"We take this, we spray the pirate in the face with it." Borton explained. "Then, we split up. The cold from the spray should throw off the pirate's heat-vision long enough for us to make a break for it. One group goes down one end of the hall, the other goes in the opposite direction, away from the repair bay. The group heading the wrong way will make a ton of noise, that way the pirate will get confused trying to follow the sound. Tom'll go with that first group and lead them to the emergency exit we came down from, while the other group takes the electrometer, goes to the repair bay, and grabs the cattle-prod. Along with anything else we could use to protect ourselves. Once that group has the cattle-prod, they'll use the electrometer to find their way back to Thomas and disable the pirate."  
  
"Hot damn." whispered Quinn. "This could actually work."  
  
"I'm not going." Irvine said. "I r-refuse to be a p-part of this suicide pact."  
  
“Henry, you can't stay down here." Borton insisted.  
  
Irvine was picking at his bandaged hand again. The cloth, although new, was already frayed and tattered. "I'll b-be fine. They'll come for me, you'll see."  
  
"Everything’s running on backup power down here, Henry.” Borton clarified.  
  
"Fine." said Irvine. "You people go ahead and take care of the pirate, and then Errol can go back to work on the computers. Get the main power back up and –"  
  
“I couldn't get the main power back up even if I wanted to." McCullough admitted sadly. "It's like I said. The system's too corrupt now."  
  
"And the auxiliary system that's keeping this place active is going to crash.” Borton added.  
  
"When?" Irvine said.  
  
Borton's fingers clenched involuntarily as she remembered feeling the door to the server room.  
  
"Soon." she surmised, judging from how hot the door had been. "And when that happens, all the lights go out, all the doors open, and all the robots that are still up and running down here come out. The halls will be filled with them. You really want to stick around for that?"  
  
Irvine looked around the room in a panic, chest rising rapidly. Borton took a step towards him and offered him her hand.  
  
"It may look rough," Borton said, "But it's still just a resort. We can do this. We can get out of here, but we have to work together."  
  
The pep-talk was more than a little forced, but she didn't want to leave him to the mercies of the other robots. Despite how difficult he was being.  
  
"Please come with us. I promise, we'll keep you safe." she told him.  
  
Before Borton could finish her round of persuasion, Quinn was on his feet and nearly shouting. "You don't want to die up there, but you're fine dying down here. That right?"  
  
"I refuse to walk into a demilitarized zone." Irvine sneered.  
  
"This is our only chance. You want this stupid place to be your tomb? Because I sure as hell don't."  
  
Irvine's features were rigid and defiant. He was resigned to giving up.  
  
Quinn tried one last thing. "Anna. What would she have to say about it?"  
  
Borton watched Irvine cringe. The name seemed to sting him back to reality. He looked to Borton with mournful eyes, but he found no solace where he searched. The last of Borton's patience was gone. Tired of babying him, she grabbed onto Irvine's flaccid, bandaged hand. Remarkably, Irvine made little protest as he was dragged upright. Instead, a kind of peacefulness overcame him. A sense of relaxed inevitability, and then nothing seemed to matter anymore. Pale and drooping, he smiled at Borton, but his eyes were dead. Holding onto her hand like a tired child, he went with her and the others to the medical bay entrance. There they removed the chairs from the doorway, and positioned themselves on both sides, ready for their emergence.  
  
Hushed, Borton said "Henry, Errol, you two go with Tom to the emergency exit."  
  
She then reached across the doorway and handed Quinn the fire extinguisher in exchange for the electrometer. Looking at the electrometer, Borton saw that the pirate was moving back down the hallway toward them. In less than a minute, he would pass by the door.  
  
"Are we ready?" she asked, eyes on Quinn.  
  
Quinn nodded, and pulled the pin from the fire extinguisher's nozzle. Gripping the nozzle tightly, he aimed it away from himself, with his opposite hand on the handle by the trigger. All he had to do was squeeze to release the agent.  
  
Borton felt her pulse flutter and her mouth go dry. Tiny beads of sweat collected on her forehead. The others, save for Irvine, looked equally nervous. Thomas pressed his nose against Borton's hip.  
  
"Joanna?" His voice was brittle. "Please be careful."  
  
"You too, buddy."  
  
One last glance around the medical center. Now or never.  
  
"Okay." she hissed. "Go."  


* * *

  
  
The dread-pirate Hektor was aware of his assailants long before they presented themselves to him. He could hear the rhythmical throbbing of their combined arteries just behind the heavy doors, the stamping of their feet as they propelled themselves through the threshold at him. Nevertheless, he was not entirely prepared for them to charge at him so brutally. If anything, he had expected them to run again.  
  
Without warning the biologics divided into their assigned pairs and rushed Hektor on both sides, shoving him back. Everything about their onslaught was slap-dash. Uncoordinated. No match for Hektor's programming.  
  
Sporting the same blank expression, Hektor swiveled back with a crisp flourish of his sword, poised to fly at one of them – presently, the dinosaur was closest, and hissed to welcome the challenge. But then one of the biologics was sweeping the nozzle of – _[fire extinguisher safety code violation no fire detected misuse of safety equipment]_ – into Hektor's dull eyes. The small red canister rumbled as a powerful blast of white foam smacked against his skin, covering most of his head and neck with surprising speed.  
  
The biologics vanished in a cloud of deep, cold violet.  
  
In response Hektor's encoding promptly ran a diagnostic.  
  
 _[Thermal imaging cameras malfunctioning. Unable to render thermographic imagery. Error 110. Suggested: seek assistance from Firdos maintenance personnel.]_  
  
Staggered, Hektor began to hobble around in tiny, disoriented circles, jerking his sword from left to right in a short crescent before finally dropping it on the floor in order to wipe the foam out of his eyes. Although he was blind, he could still hear the biologics. They were moving away from him, down the hallway in different directions. He was having trouble locking on to their positions. A build-up of cold foam had clogged the insides of both of his ears.  
  
 _[Solution: switching full perception over to electroacoustic amplification device. Volume level increased to 22.]_  
  
The biologics were yelling and banging along the walls as they ran. Hektor picked up a secondary noise. A cacophony of long, raspy screeches, like the wailing calls of some deranged bird. The dinosaur egging him on. All of it was coming from his right, drowning out the softer sounds occurring to his left. Eyes still out of order, he sank to the ground and began to tap at the tiles with his fingernails. The reverberations painted a picture in noise of a flat surface, picking up the stomping of the biologics, and any other changes in topography.   
  
By the time Hektor found his sword, the biologics had already rounded the corner. Stubbornly, he took up after them, down the hall toward what his encoding told him was an emergency exit.  


* * *

  
  
Borton's eyes blurred as the bright repair bay flashed into view at the end of the corridor, blotches of red and white dancing wherever she focused. The blotches were gone before she had a chance to mind them, and then she was flinging herself through the doorway – her heart racing as she practically dove to the floor to get at Cook's body.  
  
Quinn stood just outside the repair bay while Borton splashed through the water on her hands and knees, first checking Cook's utility belt, and then the spaces around him, under the operating table, by the wheeled cabinets, the base of the tall surgical lamp. Everywhere she could think.  
  
The cattle-prod was nowhere to be found.  
  
Knees stained and face flush, Borton could taste her own fear, coppery like a dirty penny sitting on her tongue. She swallowed hard but the taste was still there, and in that moment the energy her escape-plan had provided was swiftly swept away by a sudden flood of self-doubt. Beside herself, she began to panic. All of her confident strutting, all of the effort put in to convincing the men to leave the medical center, to come with her on this cockamamie attempt – and she had never given any thought to what she might do if something went wrong. If, say, it turned out the cattle-prod was not readily available.  
  
She let out a strangled cry of exasperation.  
  
"Where the fuck is it?"  
  
From just outside the repair bay, Quinn's voice echoed back. He was doing a terrific job of hiding his own anxiety.  
  
"Take your time. Go slow. You'll find it." he told her.  
  
Of course she would find it. She had to.  
  
Re-creating the scene, she sprang from the floor and hopped onto the operating table, feet swinging over the side like the pirate's had. She acted out Hektor's motions with an invisible sword, stabbing the air with her fist. Swapping places, she mimicked Cook's reaction and his fall to the floor.  
  
Finally, she saw the cattle-prod.  
  
It was lying at an odd angle, caught between the table's adjustable-height lever, and one of the tilt-hinges. Her fingers flew out to snatch it up, and a moment later she was rummaging through a cabinet for a spare pack of coolant.  
  
Quinn asked "You all set?"  
  
She held up the cattle-prod and the coolant pack. "I'm good."  
  
The next thing Borton knew, she and Quinn were racing down the hall back toward the medical center – past the medical center – past the control room – turning the corner where they had first met Cook. Quinn found he barely needed the electrometer to guide him to the emergency exit. The path there was less confusing than anticipated.  


* * *

  
  
McCullough's voice rang through the winding corridors as he sprinted after Thomas. He was singing while he ran, glasses askew and hair mussed. Some old rock song from his youth. The sense of danger was pressing, and he was trying to keep his spirits high. Part of him loved it, the excitement of it, while another part of him absolutely despised his lack of rationality. Behind him came the weary grunt of Irvine. The shorter man was blatantly struggling to keep up.  
  
"L-Look behind us! He's coming!" Irvine stuttered with a strained gasp.  
  
McCullough forced a grin and glanced back over his shoulder. He saw the dread-pirate Hektor, two yards away and closing quickly. Right away McCullough could tell that Hektor had regained his vision. There was no mistaking it. The way he was moving gave it away. Comfortable and confident – the gate of a true predator, radiating the threat of violence with every step he took.  
  
McCullough dropped the grin, picked up the pace and chose to bellow the second verse.  
  
Irvine on his heels, wheezing – "Th-This is it. This is how I g-go. Oh god."  
  
McCullough tuned him out, doing his best to regulate his breathing. He could do this. He could outrun the robot. They all could. Indiana Jones again, getting chased by the rolling boulder. Heroic and adventurous and loads of fun.  
  
Up ahead, Thomas screeched and barked, notifying them that their journey was nearly complete. Less than two minutes later, they arrived at the ladder that lead up to the Prehistoric-realm.  


* * *

  
  
The quartz floodlights glowed at the ends of their slots along the base of the wall, points of lesser warmth in Hektor's thermographic view. At the end of the corridor, the pair of biologics were gathering by the emergency exit. They appeared to be arguing over whether or not to climb up. They were only ten feet away, and Hektor closed the distance with surprising speed, expecting them to bolt again. Instead, they kept their place by the ladder, and he was met with hostile welcomes from the dinosaur.  
  
Lightning quick, the stealthy reptile sprinted past Hektor. He heard the whip-crack of the dinosaur's muscular tail, and then his legs were being swept out from under him. Hektor was sent crashing to the floor, sword skittering out of his hand to strike the wall beside him. At the ladder, the biologics cheered. Hektor gazed up at the ceiling, processing. The dinosaur was circling him, keeping it's distance with light, stealthy hops. Perfectly calm, Hektor rose to his knees – but before he could reclaim his sword something happened.   
  
There was a strange sensation not unlike tingling that began at the base of his neck and traveled all the way up to the top of his head. His system began to feel full. More than full. He was dimly aware that his limbs were contracting, that almost every one of his joints was seizing. He went to speak and found he was unable to. His jaw would not rotate. He was no longer in control of his own reflexes. His hydraulic fluid began to boil and his battery began to short out. The effects left him curling and coiling in a kind of bazaar convulsion. It was as close to physical discomfort as he would ever get.  
  
And all the while his encoding screamed at him –  
  
 _[WARNING. WARNING. Power levels exceeding maximum wattage allowance. Danger of processor-damage imminent. Please disconnect from power source immediately.]_  
  
Against Hektor's will, his body began to shut down. A last-ditch effort to clamp the amount of voltage it was receiving and avoid surge-failure. Behind him, he could hear the other two biologics. All four were there to whiteness his downfall.  
  
"–areful with it. Jesus."  
  
"Fuck careful. I'm going to fry the bastard." In a mocking tone – "You like that? Right where I got you the first time, asshole."    
  
Before he was forced into an unwanted period of dosing, Hektor saw the dinosaur, looming over him with it's teeth bared in a snarl. After that his processor stopped spinning and the world went black.  _  
  
_


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas must lead the group through the perilous Prehistoric-realm in order to bring them to the next level of Firdos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the super late post! I can't thank everybody enough for being patient with me, and apologize for being such a slow writer. Mini (but somewhat obvious) spoiler – this will sadly be the last chapter our heroes spend in the Prehistoric-realm, and because of that I sort of tried to write Tom as more in his dino-element. Feelings of love are also discussed, partially. Kind of. Anyway, hope you all enjoy! And thanks again for being patient. Sorry sorry, a hiddleston amount of apologies! 
> 
> Fun Facts: A few scenes in this chapter were heavily inspired by scenes in the films Jaws, and and also Tremors.

 

. . . Tuesday: 6:25 pm . . .

 

By the late afternoon, the rain had stopped and the jungles of the Prehistoric-realm were humid again. The damp air moved uneasily, stirring the smell of wet earth and leaves, and the sun sunk low behind the trees. The clearing by the emergency exit was dark – though not as dark as the control compound had been.  
  
Like most Firdos robots, Thomas was more at ease in his specified realm than in the control compound. The control compound was associated with emergencies and crude repair-operations, while the jungle instilled in Thomas a sense of great comfort. Even with the foreknowledge that danger could be lurking around any corner, the jungle was the environment he knew best, the place he was built for, and on a technical level his encoding found it much less of a challenge to cope with. He was programmed to navigate the trails, to know the plants and wildlife, and like a real dinosaur, he saw the jungle as home. He also saw it as the place he first came to know Joanna Borton. Thomas – who, by now, felt things more deeply than perhaps some living animals did – was as fond of his Joanna as he was of the jungle.  
  
Behind him, the men were talking. They were stacked in the underground tube that lead up into the sawyer's hatch, having graciously allowed Joanna Borton to climb up first. They were telling her to take a look around. Reluctantly, she poked her head out of the uncovered manhole, shivering like an edgy rabbit.  
  
In the dark, Thomas' eyes acted very much like a pair of night-vision goggles, and he saw the world in shades of electronic green and black. He was able to adjust the intensity of his perception by will. Narrowing his eyelids, he saw a brief phosphorescent flare, and then Joanna Borton became clear and defined from the bushes, heat signature represented by a haze of ghostly emerald light. Thomas thought she looked radiant like that, cast in the evening hues of his mechanical eyes.   
  
He watched her gaze sweep over him and felt the little electric pop of connection. Saw her twisting in the manhole, trying to catch a glimpse of the lobby building just behind her. There was a long, unfamiliar square structure protruding from the roof of the building. It hadn't been there before. Immediately Thomas recognized it as the elevator shaft. Together with Joanna Borton, he traced the length of the shaft, moving up until he lost sight of it through the thick branches of the canopy. Each of it's dull gray sides was covered in thin, glossy plates – actually enormous, broken television screens. They flickered randomly, and left the whole shaft pulsing in scrambled surges. One moment it was obvious, set apart in color and size from the surrounding forest. The next, it was struggling to project an image of fern leaves and tree bark. Blending seamlessly into the backdrop.  
  
Thomas squinted up at the shaft, wondering how much more of the park was glitching. How much more of the charade was falling away. He knew that it could only be a result of the failing auxiliary power. More noise from the manhole, and keen robotic hearing caught the voice of Errol McCullough. Positioned directly below Joanna Borton in the manhole, Thomas heard him whisper a stealthy "Be careful. Watch out for that one with wings."  
  
As if on cue, Thomas saw the dark shadow of an angular cloud on the forest floor ahead, moving fast. Looking up, he saw the enormous shape gliding through the air, and in response, an index of pterosaur names popped into his head.  
  
 _[Aeroetutan – late Cretaceous. Danguela – early Cretaceous. Elanodactylus – early Cretaceous.  Pterodactylus – late Jurassic. Criorhynchus, also called Ornithocheirus – mid Cretaceous. Identification = criorhynchus.]_  
  
The shadow blotted out what remained of the sunlight as it swept over Thomas. He stood below it, utterly stunned. Had it been waiting there this whole time for them to return?  
  
The criorhynchus gave a low whistle and wheeled gracefully, turning back toward the manhole. At that height, it looked like a small airplane. With a shrill shriek, it folded it's wings, collapsing into a fall directly above Thomas. He observed the scene with detached captivation. At the very last second he braced himself as the criorhynchus spiraled down, a flashing blur that whooshed past him with a rush of cool air. A minute's worth of processing cemented the inkling that this fellow dinosaur was not playing a game. From the manhole, he heard the queries of the men at Joanna Borton's heels, begging her to describe what was happening. Her brief answer suggested that she may have been too distracted by the present spectacle to provide adequate commentary.  
  
"It's back. Tom's fighting it."  
  
Her words traveled down the line of men as a Chinese whisper.  
  
The criorhynchus came from behind, streaked over Thomas' head, and swooped a second time, screaming as it hurtled downward. Bearing the approaching scream, Thomas sped across the clearing and flung himself into a dropping roll just as the criorhynchus screamed past him, flapping it's wings. Meanwhile, Joanna Borton watched as sharp talons tore the rubber skin along his back. He missed her cringing, missed her somehow feel the pain that he couldn't.  
  
In less than a minute Thomas was back on his feet, totally undeterred by the fresh injury. He moved a few paces forward while, overhead, the criorhynchus circled and dove toward him again. He swerved aside for a second time as it flapped angrily past. On the final dive, Thomas was not quick enough, and the criorhynchus managed to tag him by the tail with its talons. The dinosaur's huge leathery wings, translucent in the sunlight, flapped broadly on both sides of him. The criorhynchus was trying to take off, but Thomas was too heavy. It struggled viciously, repeatedly jabbing at Thomas' head with its long pointed snout.  
  
Thomas lurched back and sprang into the air, bending his tail at an awkward curve. With all his weight he threw himself against the body of the criorhynchus, knocking it onto it's back. He fell to the ground with it, landing on top of the heaving, thrashing dinosaur as it snapped and twisted under him. He ducked his head away from the jaws and huddled close in as the giant wings beat around his body. Suddenly there was nothing but a savage torrent of flapping. He watched, half trapped, as the clawed legs scratched frantically at his chest, missing each time until – finally – there was a break in the onslaught and he was able to push himself away. Newly freed, the criorhynchus squeaked and gibbered, struggling wildly to turn it's self over again.  
  
Thomas saw the opportunity clear as day, and all at once he became a thing possessed. Snarling, he sprang suddenly back onto the front of the criorhynchus, pinning the dinosaur to the dirt with his heavy toe-claws. He sat on it's stomach, rearing over it like a true predator, and with a single harsh rip of slicing teeth, the criorhynchus' right wing was torn from it's side at the point of connection. Hissing with a full mouth, Thomas began to shake the severed wing like a dog with a chunk of meat. In his frenzy he heard a sharp gasp, and turned to see Joanna Borton clambering out of the manhole to get a better view. He froze on top of the criorhynchus, the delicate pink membranes that stretched thinly across the metal arm crumpled and tattered between his jaws. For a second time since he reentered the Prehistoric-realm, his eyes locked with those of his ward, and he felt a terrific sinking sensation. He never intended to let Joanna Borton see such unedited violence from him, but he had been unable to stop himself. Now this current, grisly display made his prior fight with the pirate look absolutely tame, and he thought that Joanna Borton must be repulsed by this raw, animal side of him. Much to his astonishment, she began to smile. A look that told him she was not only proud of his actions, but thrilled by them. Relieved, Thomas spat the ruined wing out of his mouth with a triumphant snort.  
  
One by one, the other guests exited the manhole and gathered around the mangled criorhynchus. A few of them clapped.  
  
"Well done." Errol McCullough remarked, sounding positively enthralled.  
  
Beside him, Joanna Borton added a hearty "Yeah, nice work, buddy."  
  
While Thomas held the criorhynchus still, Michael Quinn approached and bent over it with the cattle-prod. The weapon looked fragile and almost insufficient compared to the criorhynchus' massive toothy beak (somewhat bent at the tip), but it became evident that the criorhynchus could no longer defend it's self.  
  
Grinning smugly, Quinn held the cattle-prod up.  
  
"Smile, you son of a –"  
  
The cattle-prod struck the beady eye of the criorhynchus with a clang. There was a burst of hot sparks accompanied by the crinkling sound of seared rubber, and all at once the criorhynchus seemed to spasm. Thomas cocked his head, waiting until the other robot finally relaxed, and then hopped off of it's chest.  
  
Quinn said "Any other welcome parties on the way, Jo?"  
  
Joanna Borton seemed to blank. She looked down at the electrometer in her hand. The grid showed nothing incoming.  
  
"All clear." she said.  
  
"Good." Quinn replied. "Lead the way, Tom."  
  
Thomas straitened and pointed his snout at the trees across the clearing, mimicking the pose of a hunting dog. Before long the group found themselves back on the herbivore trail.  


* * *

  
  
Borton was charged. She had seen three men die in front of her that morning, and each death had been vastly different to her father's. Nothing slow or drawn out. These had been sudden, ghastly, gruesome deaths, and they had caused in her a kind of tectonic shift. She was taking things very seriously now, and as she surveyed the jungle – bewitchingly beautiful in it's silence – she made up her mind about two crucial things.  
  
The first was that she would survive this. And the second was that she would see to it nobody else died.  
  
After all, it had been her idea to climb out, to escape – and the remaining men had willingly followed her. She felt responsible for them. It was almost maternal, this feeling, and while she was perfectly aware that they could each take care of themselves (as most grown men tend to in dire-type situations), she would see to it that she was as helpful to them as she possibly could be.  
  
Psychically, Borton was short and lean, but she had in her a wiry kind of strength that, normally, was reserved for building machines – and, when she had the time, playing baseball. She knew that the group would be relying on Thomas for protection, but if the circumstances called for it, she wouldn't hesitate to use her strength to assist him. Then again, if push did come to shove, she was also fairly certain that it would be her mental faculties that came into play more than anything else. Borton was sharp, resourceful. At least she thought she was. She remained confident that she could come up with a way of keeping the group safe if danger reappeared.  
  
As she walked, she noted that the forest floor was littered with the tiny bodies of motionless insects, birds, and small reptiles. Miniature robots that went more or less unnoticed by the rest of the group. The systems and batteries of these robots were never meant to last without the constant connection to the network, and most had ceased functioning in a matter of hours after the server crash. Borton stepped lightly, doing her best not accidentally crush any of them. Before long Thomas developed the habit of tip-toeing around them as well. Just before the group left the herbivore trail, Borton spied a small, metal dragon fly glinting up at her from the dirt. She remembered wanting to steal one like it on the day of the tour. Mulling it over, she found the prospect no longer appealed.     
  
She moved on, and for the second time that day, she found herself in the swamp of the Prehistoric-realm. The swamp, seen so many times by all of them, had become boring to travel through. Borton concerned herself with checking the electrometer every two to three minutes to both keep cautious, and stave off the tedium of the trek. At one point she spotted a cluster of dots on the grid. A round of distant croaking, like frogs, and Thomas reminded the group that this was where they saw the thecodontosaurus pack during the tour.  
  
"We will change our course to avoid them." Thomas said.  
  
Taking a hidden path through several inches of thick bog-mud, the group emerged on the opposite bank of the river.  
  
From there, they crossed onto the carnivore trail (despite Irvine's numerous protests), and halfway through, the electrometer began to chirp again. Borton studied the grid, scanned the leaves and stopped. The others stopped along with her. She looked up, higher, and saw the familiar thick body – it's pebbled, grainy surface dry now, like the bark of a tree. She swept her vision upward and saw the horned head of the dinosaur as it emerged from just beyond the branches. It stopped a yard or so away, looking over at the group of travelers. Several long minutes passed, and Borton watched as the big lizard rolled its head in the dimming light. It didn't look like it saw them. Borton hoped it didn't.  
  
Just then McCullough's voice was whispering into her ear.  
  
"Jo?"  
  
"Yes, Errol?"  
  
"You see what it is?"  
  
"Yes, Errol."  
  
"Is it the one that . . . got the technician? This morning?"  
  
"Yes, Errol."  
  
There was a  pause, and she heard McCullough swallow thickly.  
  
"Heat sensors, right? Don't think he's seen us. We should just . . . wait here a while. Not, ah, draw attention to ourselves."  
  
Borton had the sense that McCullough was trying to talk in a way that wouldn't upset Irvine. A useless gesture, as a moment later, the dinosaur opened it's jaws and began to howl loudly. Behind her, Irvine and Quinn both jumped.  


* * *

  
  
Allosaurus was a forgettable dinosaur, constantly compared to it's larger cousin, tyrannosaurus. Even it's name meant _different lizard_. If the two were to be placed in a room together, an observer would immediately notice that tyrannosaurus was much thicker in it's build than allosaurus. Stockier, standing around eighteen feet tall and weighing more than five tons. Allosaurus, on the other hand, would have been considerably smaller (only twelve feet tall), and usually weighed around two tons. There were other, less noticeable differences as well, like the fact allosaurus had three fingers on the forelimbs, rather than two. The forearms themselves were much longer than those of a tyrannosaurus, and unlike the tyrannosaur' strong, banana-sized teeth, the allosaurus had laterally flattened teeth, like double-edged knife blades.  
  
While the palentologist portion of Michael Quinn was fully aware of the numerous distinctions between the two dinosaurs, he was also able to recognize that a mouth full of allosaurus teeth was just as intimidating as a mouth full of tyrannosaurus teeth. And that was a fact. For a split second the atavistic part of his brain sent a ping of regret that he wasn't holding anything larger than the cattle-prod.  
  
The allosaurus took a languid step forward, and Quinn's eyes fell to watch the creature's legs. Large, muscular. Such natural, realistic movements. He was rendered both afraid and impressed by the realism of it all. He thought back to the bones he dug up. To the typical museum-display of an allosaurus, assembled fossils suspended from the ceiling by wires in the eternal-pose of an awkward gallop. What must this allosaurus' bones look like? Shiny, pristine. If Quinn were feeling brave enough, he might have asked Borton about the mechanical side of it. From what he could tell, it didn't look like a complicated structure so much as a heavy one. He wagered the neck and head alone must weigh as much as a small car. The support must come entirely from the legs.  
  
Lost in thought, Quinn flinched when, all at once, the allosaurus began to gag. Coughing and retching until something large and metallic came barreling out of it's mouth. Dislodged from the dinosaur's mighty throat, the object landed with a heavy plop on the muddy riverbank.  
  
Quinn was in awe. Below the branches, he held his place with the other onlookers, gazing up at the bellowing creature.  
  
"What's it called?" McCullough asked.  
  
"It's an allosaurus." Quinn replied. He did not take his eyes off the dinosaur when he spoke.  
  
"Allosaurus, huh. Seems to have eaten something that's disagreed with it." McCullough remarked.  
  
"How can something disagree with it? Robots don't have stomachs." Quinn argued.  
  
Irvine was whimpering behind them. "I want to go now."  
  
McCullough pointed across the glen at the gleaming iron chunk the allosaurus had just choked up. The metal was wrapped in tattered bits of scaly rubber.  
  
"Looks like it took a bite out of another dinosaur. What do you think, Jo?" McCullough asked.  
  
Borton shook her head, obviously at a loss. She made no comment.  
  
"Please. I want to go." Irvine repeated.  
  
"Maybe it thinks it's real. Maybe it thinks it's got a stomach to digest with." McCullough offered, answering his own questions.  
   
A mournful boom from the allosaurus as another round of retching brought up a wave of pungent gunk and sour oil. Now it's jaws were coated whitish-blue, and the noise it made was wet and strained.  
  
"Well I'll tell you one thing." Borton mumbled, partially disgusted by the display. "It won't last long. Not with all the hydraulic fluid it's bringing up."  
  
"Please." Irvine begged.  
  
Quietly, the group left. The allosaurus did not follow them, but the encounter with it left more than one group-member spooked. Even after a good thirty-five minutes had passed, Quinn was still feeling antsy. The cattle-prod had been turned off to reserve power. Quinn flipped it up and down as he walked, catching it each time with a backwards turn of his wrist. Irvine and McCullough trudged along behind him. Up ahead, Borton and Thomas walked side by side. Nobody was saying anything, and Quinn thought things were a little too quiet.  
  
"Jo, how we looking?" he asked her.  
  
She checked the electrometer and shook her head.  
  
"You sure?" he insisted.  
  
"Yes." said Borton.  
  
"Makes you wonder where they all are, doesn't it." McCullough mused.  
  
"So long as they stay away from us and we stay away from them, I'm satisfied." Quinn grumbled.  
  
"Perhaps it was only the few of them left. Maybe the rest have all frozen. Or their batteries have run out. Wouldn't that be lovely?" McCullough went on.  
  
With all the subtlety of a brick through a windowpane, Irvine asked "Does anybody have any idea how long it will actually take for us to get out of here? Does the tour guide have an itinerary he wants to share or –?"  
  
"Not including variables," Thomas began, "Reaching the surface should take approximately thirteen hours."  
  
"Define _variables_." Quinn said, making little air-quotations with his fingers.  
  
Thomas squawked, happily explaining that travel-time should be allotted for rest breaks, encounters with malfunctioning animatronics, and possible periods of lingering. "A percentage of time must also be factored in for guidance errors." Thomas finished.  
  
"Guidance errors?" Irvine repeated, shocked.  
  
"Thought you said you knew where you were going, Tom." Quinn said.  
  
Before Thomas could answer, Borton jumped in on his behalf.  
  
"Tom knows. Don't worry." she interjected briskly. "He's just, you know, thinking ahead. Just because there's the possibility of, um, errors – well that doesn't mean there will be. Right?"  
  
Quinn's expression was dubious. Behind him, Irvine was humming anxiously to himself, heralding the death of the conversation. Nobody bothered to resurrect it.  
  
The group crossed through a remote stretch of jungle not associated with any particular trail. As they went the electrometer started chirping again, and from the top of a small foothill they saw a sizable herd of duck-billed dinosaurs grazing at the edge of a dank lagoon, stripping the leaves off the surrounding palm trees. These appeared to be the hardosaurs that likely inhabited the nesting site on the herbivore trail.  
  
"Now I know what all my consultations were for." Quinn said.  
  
Preoccupied with eating, the hardosaurs took no notice of the group and continued to wade sluggishly through the mire. Quinn kept his distance, while Borton couldn't help but marvel at the seemingly touching sight.  
  
The herd included several hatchlings and they were stomping playfully around the legs of their massive parents, mooing like infant cows and splashing in the muck. The scene was picturesque, and Borton was reminded of the Prehistoric-realm's original purpose. The entertainment of children.  
  
"Shouldn't we keep moving?" Irvine said, hurrying them along.  
  
"Look at the babies." Borton said, stopping.  
  
"What is it?" Quinn said.  
  
"They're eating." she murmured, mystified. "They're even swallowing."  
  
"So? Who cares? Let them eat whatever they want, so long as it isn't us." Irvine insisted.  
  
"They're going to ruin themselves that way. They weren't designed to _really_ eat. They're going against their programming, doing that."  
  
Quinn was pulling her away. "Come on, before they see us."  
  
Borton did as she was told, but as she fell into step behind Quinn she began to silently analyze the behavior of the animatronic dinosaurs. She started at the beginning, with the allosaurus. It had been eating the technician, hadn't it? Next – the tyrannosaurus rex. It had gone after Abrams. And then there was Irvine's guide, and McCullough's. Both had attacked their wards in that same animalistic way.  
  
 _You're forgetting Tom_ , she reminded herself.  
  
He too had demonstrated the same feral disposition with the criorhynchus. And earlier, the allosaurus again, puking up the remnants of a meal gone wrong. McCullough had mentioned that it might have thought it was alive, that it thought it had a stomach to fill.  
  
Borton wondered if that were true.  


* * *

  
  
Soon the group came to an opening in the jungle. Ahead of them was a large open plain covered by long elephant-grass. It sat on the far side of the lagoon, overlooking the interior of the realm. The setting sun was low overhead, dipping down toward the horizon, and below, the valley shimmered in the fading light.  
  
Quinn cleared his throat. "I don't mean to be crude, but I gotta take care of some business."  
  
"Aye. Me as well." McCullough added.  
  
"Same here." Irvine confessed, avoiding their eyes.  
  
"Right." said McCullough, "Shall we, erm, see to ourselves privately then?"  
   
Irvine's head snapped up. "What? You mean split up? Have you lost it?"  
  
"Ordinarily, I'd be happy to put on a show for you, Henry," McCullough sighed, "But right this moment the mood doesn't suit me."  
  
"As soon as we split up they're going to pick us off. One by one." Irvine wailed.  
  
"Henry, there's nothing around right now." Borton assured him, referencing the electrometer. "Look. See? No dots on the screen. We're totally safe."  
  
"Safe to you is ten feet away from an – an allosaurus or a – those duck things. Whatever they were called."  
  
"Jesus." Quinn snapped. "Am I allowed to take a leak in peace, or what?"  
  
Borton rolled her eyes. "How about this. We take it in turns. Tom goes with whoever's – umm – going, and the rest of us stay here with the electrometer and the cattle-prod. Sound good?"  
  
Irvine gave a hesitant nod.  
  
Quinn went first, expressing a rather desperate need. He left the cattle-prod with Borton. McCullough went after him, lead away into the cover of the tall grass by Thomas. When he came back out, Irvine went in. Finally, it was Borton's turn. She gave the electrometer and cattle-prod to Quinn and followed Thomas through the curtain of grass.  
  
Borton was not opposed to nature. Unlike other girls, she didn't mind the pollen or the bugs. She took infrequent walks in the park by her apartment to clear her head (when she could find the time), but she would never go so far as to classify herself as an outdoors-person. She spent too much of her time indoors for that. Long stretches of her life could be summed up by the various rooms she occupied. Bedrooms, classrooms, workshops, film sets, her apartment, her studio. Even her Firdos vacation had, technically speaking, occurred indoors under the spanning false-sky of the electric dome. Borton did not mind. She had practically grown up in her father's workshop. While her school friends spent the California weekends hiking and camping with their respective families, Borton remained behind to help her father with whatever project he had on his plate. Borton envied her friends, to a degree, but she never felt deprived. She could have asked her father to go camping whenever she wanted – once or twice her father even offered to take her – but she preferred to help him build robots instead.  
  
Occasionally, however, Borton did wonder what the camping experience was like. Setting up a tent and sleeping in the dirt, building fires to roast marshmallows over. Making in the bushes. This last one she would no longer had to wonder about. Presently she crouched in the tall, tan grass and relieved herself, finding the process both unpleasant and slightly humiliating. About a yard away, Thomas stood facing the opposite direction, keeping a keen eye out for danger. He would not turn to watch her.  
  
Taking a wad of toilet paper from her pocket, Borton wiped herself off, readjusted her clothes and stepped out of the grass. She was suddenly aware of how dirty she was, almost shamed by it. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were stained, she was covered in dry sweat. She felt grimy, and couldn't stop herself from thinking about her hotel-room shower, of the jacuzzi tub she never got to try out.  
  
She went over to Thomas.  
  
"Finished." she said, and watched him turn to evaluate her.  
  
They were alone in the field.  
  
"You require hydration." Thomas said conversationally.  
  
Borton stared at him. "Tom, were – were you –"  
  
Thomas bent his head to the side, near-invisible feathers ruffling slightly. "I overheard you. I was not listening."  
  
She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed. "God, I really need to teach you about personal boundaries, don't I."  
  
"I'm sor–"  
  
"Don't be. You're right. We're going to need food and water again soon. Think I burned through those cookies about an hour ago. Umm. Could we loot the hotel, do you think?"  
  
"Returning to the hotel would be unwise." Thomas informed her. "There is a high chance that the area is no longer safe."  
  
Borton knew that he was referring not only to the building's instability following the tyrannosaur's attack, but also to his fellow guides. She pictured Rosie springing out of the brush to blind-side McCullough, and spent a further moment counting up the remaining tour guides in her head. Quinn said his guide had frozen that morning, and Irvine had destroyed his guide with the automatic-chef. But that still left Abrams' guide unaccounted for. It was probably still roaming the hotel.  
  
"You're right. We can't go back there." she agreed.  
  
"There should be ample supplies available in the Zombie-realm." Thomas promised her. "We will reach the emergency exit shortly."  
  
Borton forced a laugh.  
  
"What would we do without you, huh." she said with an impish smile.  
  
His face sagged a little at the comment, the hard lines of his mouth drawn down into a conflicted, regretful look.  
  
"You will be without me soon." Thomas specified. His words made as much of an impact on her as a splash of cold water.  
  
In her haste to leave the medical center, Borton had failed to give any kind of thought to what might happen to Thomas once she was gone. Come to mention it, she barely had any clue as to what the regular after-process might be. Curious, she asked him.  
  
"Tom, let's pretend this trial went all right. That nothing bad happened here. If everything was still okay, what would happen to you? You know. After the trial finished?"  
  
"You are my first ward." he replied. "I do not know."  
  
Borton pressed her lips together. "Humor me, Tom."  
  
She watch the velociraptor trash his tail stubbornly. "Logic dictates that I would return to the repair-bay and forgo routine maintenance. Perhaps a round of upgrades."  
  
"Do you . . ." She trailed off, searching for the right words. "Would they wipe your memory, do you think? Your memories of me?"  
  
"It is possible." Thomas told her. "I have a limited amount of space available in my recall bank, and memories of past wards could potentially interfere with my duties as a tour guide."  
  
"How?"  
  
For a fleeting moment, he stared at her like she was a total stranger. Then a sorrowful warmth flooded his voice.  
  
"I would miss you."  
  
"You mean, I would distract you from serving your new wards." Borton surmised.  
  
"That is correct."  
  
She snorted to herself. "I seriously doubt you're going to have any more wards, if that makes you feel any better."  
  
Thomas nodded and craned his neck to the sky. Still partially bright, one or two stars twinkled overhead in the hazy orange-pink.  
  
"But if I did, I would not want them to erase you, Joanna. Even if it wound up jeopardizing my efficiency." Thomas confessed. "I would want you to remain on my mind."  
  
Flattered, Boton said "Well in that case, good news. I think you're going to be stuck with me."    
  
He looked at her hopefully then, green eyes gleaming like gems. Fondness pricked her heart, and fragments of a memory tugged at her – an image of Thomas, blanketed by the happy blur of alcohol. _You're extraordinarily talented, Joanna, and I would love to see the things you make. Someday_.  
  
"Stuck having me on your mind, that is." she added quickly, certain there was more she wanted to say but unable to determine exactly what.  
  
Thomas gave her another strange look. A confusing, distracting stare that she couldn't quite classify. Like a combination of childlike awe and puppyish adoration, like he was suddenly starving for something undefined. Before she had time to speculate on the cause, Thomas was ducking in towards her – his angular head suddenly, impossibly close – reptilian tongue darting out of his parting jaws to lightly graze her cheek at the spot where the welt had risen. Borton's heart thrummed alive in her chest, too loud for her to cope.  
  
 _Down boy. Bad dinosaur._  
  
Immediately, she shrank back, miming a quick "Not necessary" with her hands. Thomas slunk away, apologetic, and she forged on instantly, trying to mask any shared discomfort.  
  
"You shouldn't waste that on me. It doesn't even hurt that much anym–"  
  
This time he caught her cheek, and she felt his tongue slide along her jaw and touch the corner of her mouth. She swatted him away.  
  
"Ugh," she groaned, and wiped the residue off with the back of her wrist. "Dino spit. Lovely."  
  
"Will you miss me?" Thomas questioned.  
  
She rolled her eyes and grabbed his head in her hands, pretending to scold him.  
  
"Careful. You get too sappy, and you'll turn into a big lump of amber."  
  
He wiggled out of her grip and implored her with a whine. She looked at the holes in his chest, perpetually leaking white.  
  
"Of course I'll miss you." she told him. A beat. Too much emotion, now was not the time. She was in the middle of an electronic jungle, filled with things that wanted to eat her – for some reason – and she was allowing herself to get distracted by sentimentality.  
  
She shrugged and turned away. "All right. We should head back."  
  
Thomas nodded.  
  
After regrouping, Borton was given the electrometer again, and the travelers moved to a narrow gap in the paths that wound down to the heart of the jungle. According to Thomas, it would bring them to the river in less than half a mile.  


* * *

  
  
Although Thomas was unaccustomed to love, he was not ignorant to it.  
  
He knew what love was, foremost in the scholarly sense. The word was a part of his data-bank in nearly two-hundred varying translations, and he had memorized over a dozen definitions for it. He knew that the love of a mother for her baby was vastly different than the love of a wife for her husband. One was the noun – a parent would inevitably feel an intense kind of deep affection for their offspring – and the other was the verb – the wife would feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.  
  
Thomas was also well aware of sexuality. He was heavily versed in the mating rituals of birds, although he wasn't entirely sure why. If he wanted to, he could easily attract a female velociraptor through visual displays and musical calls. He was also studiously familiar with sexual responses in humans. Increased heart rate, perspiration, widening of the pupils, more blood-flow to skin on the forehead and cheeks. As a Firdos robot, Thomas was equipped to identify sexual responses on the spot, but (being built to entertain children) he was not equipped to simulate or experience them for himself.   
  
At the same time, Thomas was fully capable of experiencing emotional love. Said love would be a simplified version, however. Sweet, innocent. Mental attraction rather than physical.  
  
As it stood, Thomas knew what love was, and he knew that love – genuine, passionate love – was his.  
  
The scenario might have presented a dangerous paradox for a stable machine that was less stable than himself, but as it stood the incongruity had yet to cause Thomas any systemic damage. He was perfectly comfortable being in love. In fact, he rather liked it. In his head, he had stored a number of poems. Verses that included lyrical words like sentiment, longing, and soul. He could find them in a sub-folder along with a gallery of select paintings, and one or two captured photographs of his ward, Joanna Borton.  
  
What he had with his Joanna should have been a working partnership; a sort of pompous guardianship – or even a stately and dignified friendship. Instead he had come online with this feverish, burning infatuation that, over the course of the week, had grown into something much larger and far more difficult to describe.  
  
To begin with, Joanna Borton was the ideal master. The other guests had seen to the welfare of their dinosaurs from a sense of duty and business expediency. Tourists trying not to wreck the merchandise for fear of having to pay for it. They had treated their Prehistoric-realm tour guides like machines, whereas Joanna Borton had seen to the welfare of Thomas as if he was something more than a servant. A pet, maybe. Or even a child. She had seen him (he hoped) as alive. He sensed she could not help it.  
  
Joanna Borton had even gone so far as to repair him after his encounter with the tyrannosaurus rex. In that instance, she had shown genuine concern for him – gone to great lengths to fix him even when it meant endangering her own well-being.  
  
How could Thomas not be in love with Joanna Borton?  
  
They had a number of things in common. A love of cinema, in particular, was something he felt they truly connected on. And there was the way she had of handling him. Of taking his head between her hands (never roughly) and scratching his snout, or even the back of his neck, while she called him names. Buddy. Tommy-boy. He suspected these were love-names, and he knew no greater joy than that gentle embrace. At each stroke of Joanna Borton's fingertips, it seemed that his insides would crumble with ecstasy.  
  
The possibility of both reciprocation and rejection, in the basic and the romantic sense, did not exist for Thomas. He was logical enough to know better. He had long ago calculated that Joanna Borton would – could never share his love, and so he did not seek these tokens out. He had been built to serve, to guide, to protect, and he had served her, and guided her, and when the situation turned ugly, he had done his best to protect her. Any properly functioning robot would have done the same. Still, she saw in him something unique – put him apart from the other robots, and that further cemented his obsession. But he was content to adore her from a silent distance. Walk by the hour, eager, alert, at Joanna Borton's feet, looking up into her face, dwelling on it it's features and savoring each fleeting expression. When she slept, he would forgo dosing as long as possible to watch the woman stir on the mattress, mimicking the occasional movements of her body. Count the breaths she took and make sure there were no inconsistencies.  
  
In all things, he strived to remain by Joanna Borton's side. To get to know her fully and devotedly.  
  
But from the core of his programming came the knowing fear that no ward could be permanent. Guests came and left Firdos too regularly, and they never left with robots. Robots were not allowed off the grounds. Due to this fear of separation, Thomas did not like Joanna Borton to get out of his sight. He liked to know where she was at all times, and missed her when she went away. Now he was leading her to the surface, practically ushering her out of his life (do doubt permanently) in as polite a manner as he could.  
  
Thomas – who had faced the pirate and the criorhynchus and the tyrannosaur, all without hesitation – was afraid that he would never see Joanna Borton again.  
  
It was a confusing conundrum, this strange division of desires. On the one hand, he wanted badly for Joanna Borton to stay at Firdos, while on the other, he was programmed to ensure her safety. And that meant continuing to guide the remaining guests out of peril. Even so, he could not envision a scenario where Joanna Borton was absent, and had no real idea what he would do with himself once she was gone.  


* * *

  
  
Borton's thoughts buzzed in the silence. It felt as though the downward slope was starting to level out. She hoped it wasn't too much father to the river. She could hear the others growing restless behind her. Quinn kept trying to spark up a conversation, and Irvine kept trying to end it. McCullough was tragically caught in the middle. Borton did her best to ignore their squabbling and focus on the electrometer. The grid was empty, and had been for the last fifteen minutes. After checking one last time, Borton let her mind drift back to her earlier train of thought.  
  
Hunger. Why were the dinosaurs eating? It was a mystery, one she was determined to solve.  
  
"Errol," Borton ventured, "You ever find out what caused all of this?"  
  
"What? The breakdown?" he asked, sounding happy to be pulled out of Quinn and Irvine's loop of bickering.  
  
"Yeah." said Borton. "Did you see anything out of the ordinary when you were going through the Firdos computers? Anything that might explain why the dinosaurs are eating things? Like, _actually_ eating?"  
  
"Ah, so you're stuck on that, too, eh? I'm afraid I didn't find anything distinct, if that's what you mean. I saw a few lines of code. Very strange, nothing I can say I'm familiar with. But keep in mind I also saw that the technicians were working on quantum computers. Their entire network is quantum-based. I never expected to see that sort of thing at a theme park."  
  
Intrigued, Borton asked if he had any theories.  
  
"I have an opinion." McCullough replied. "Personally, I don't think it's mimicry anymore. I think the dinosaurs are eating because they want to. Or, they think they want to. The whole thing feels like an example of something artificial becoming synthetic. Alive in a new way."  
  
She gave him a side-long stare, hung-up on the word _want_. If the robots wanted to eat, did they also want to kill?  
  
"You don't think it's just them, you know, falling back on their rudimentary programming?" she asked him. "Zombies chewing on people because that's what they were designed to do? Just, you know, no more safety restrictions?"  
  
"Could be." McCullough shrugged. "But if that was the case, then why did the vikings go mad? Their rudimentary programming is to seduce the tourists, not kill them. And how about our pirate friend back at the medical center? The dread-pirate Hektor is programmed to attack the captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge, and only the captain of the Queen Anne's Revenge. If he was going by rudimentary programming alone, why, then, would he attack you?"  
  
"Mistook me for the captain?" Borton ventured.  
  
"You weren't wearing the hat." McCullough brought up. "And you had no sword, not to mention that neither of you were on the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge. You might want to give Hektor a tad bit more credit than that." he finished, and fell silent.  
  
Borton frowned, disturbed by the notion. Recalling the story of Pinnochio, she pondered the chance that, maybe, the robots of Firdos were pining for realism. For the appearance of some blue fairy that could turn them into real boys and girls – or, in the case of the Prehistoric-realm, real dinosaurs.  
  
"Do androids dream of electric fairies?" she recited under her breath in a kind of grim, sing-song fashion.  
  
If that was the answer – that the robots now _wanted_ to be real – then maybe that would explain why they were acting real. Or trying to. Doing things like eating and killing.  
  
She thought about Thomas. She knew that he was aware of himself, was conscious (even embracing) of the fact that he was a robot. If her theory was correct, did that mean Thomas yearned for life, too? Something about that tugged at her conscious like a cat threatening to pull a knitted sweater apart.  
  
The group passed through another section of open field, heading towards a small stand of trees.  For the first time, Borton noticed just how quickly it was growing dark. A host of new stars littered the stretch of purple sky overhead, and the daylight was fading fast. She dogged Thomas' footsteps, clutching the electrometer with clenching fingers.  
  
Thomas' voice was soft as he asked after her.  
  
"Joanna?"  
  
"I'm fine." Borton assured him.  
  
Subtly, she picked up her pace. Keeping her momentum going meant that she didn't have the chance to frighten herself. The last thing Borton wanted was to slow down or stop. If she did, it would mean having to face up to a rapidly approaching, and frankly depressing reality. Night was falling, and Thomas was loosing coolant. The likelihood of his hard-drive frying before he could lead them out of Firdos was quickly increasing.  
  
 _It's fine. Everything's fine_ , she told herself. _Just keep a look out. We're fine if you just keep a good look out._  
  
Borton glued her eyes to the electrometer, committed. She felt Quinn's hand on her shoulder, but did not look up.  
  
"How you hanging in there?"  
  
Borton forced a smile. "Okay. You?"  
  
"Getting sick of walking. I get home, think I'll go for the world couch-potato record." he said.  
  
Borton could easily tell he was faking the enthusiasm. She wondered if her own rouse was as transparent.  
  
"What about your excavations?" she asked lightly.  
  
"Might take a year off. Or two." said Quinn. "Hell, maybe I'll quit the digs, and the teaching too. I could write a book."  
  
The electrometer chirped awake in Borton's hands, and both she and Quinn were promptly alert.  
  
"Trouble?" said Quinn.  
  
"Up ahead, looks like." Borton replied.  
  
Eye still on the electrometer, she walked directly into Thomas' rigid tail. Looking up, she saw that he and the others had come to a halt at the top of a low rise, where a break in the foliage gave them a view down a sloping field that was cut by the river. Sure enough, from the edge of the bluff, Borton could see the long, swaying necks of the brachiosaurus herd, their massive heads poking up above the tree-line, silhouetted against the setting sun. Constantly chewing, like giant cows. Just beyond them, at the base of the hillside, the river, glistening in the twilight.  
  
"Look." Quinn said, pointing.  
  
Borton followed the direction of his finger and saw the building beneath the center of the dome, about half the length of a football field away from the hotel.  
  
Maintenance Lodge Number Seven was built high above the ground, on big wooden pylons, in the middle of a stand of fir trees. But the building looked unfinished and unpainted. The windows seemed to lack glass, and the walls were splattered with broad rippling streaks. More malfunctioning camouflage screens. They were stuttering rapidly – much faster than the ones that decorated the lobby had. The building blinked in and out of vision. Borton figured the screens would probably fail soon.  
  
"We're almost there." Quinn said.  
  
"Almost. Just have to find a way across the river." Borton replied, negative thoughts suddenly forgotten. Things were going better than expected, and she hoped they would be out soon.  


* * *

  
  
On the walk toward the river, Thomas revealed that he was beginning to experience guidance difficulties. This was a result of having a navigation system that relied almost entirely on a wireless system that, for the moment, did not exist.  
  
"I require a visual reference in order to recalculate my bearings." Thomas explained, and revealed his plan to scan the surrounding territory from a higher perch. "Please wait here."  
  
Borton watched with mild amusement as he padded over to the nearest tree, and circled it several times. Much to Borton's surprise, he turned out to be far more adept at climbing than she would have ever guessed. Thomas took to the tree like a gecko, using his long, grasping claws and muscular hind legs to dig into the bark and pull himself up in scattered, hefty hoists. Using this method, he was able to scale the tree in record time.  
  
From the base of the tree, Borton called up to Thomas. "What's the story? You see a way across?"  
  
The velociraptor was perched on the branches, just a few feet above Borton's head. Coolant was trickling from his claws. With an odd sense of awe, Borton wondered if Thomas had been built to climb, or was accidentally skilled at it. Barking down at them, Borton came to learn that there was a bridge across the river not too far away. It was disguised as a set of fallen trees. With his navigation back on track, Thomas quickly descended, and the group resumed their procession.  
  
At the river a thought occurred to Borton. Could the electrometer pick up a robot's signal through water? She glanced over the edge of the root-bridge as she crossed it, watching out for the long, streamlined bodies of the Thalassomedons. Although the water was murky, and it was hard to decipher the shapes below the surface, she was relived when she did not see any sign of them.   
  
After making their way across the bridge, the group stopped a mile or so away from the river on a small incline to catch their breaths. It was then that Borton saw him. Out of the corner of her eye – a man, tall and lithe and motionless. Eerily motionless. He was standing several yards behind her on the other side of the river, watching them. His face was obscured by the dark and the distance, and at first she thought he might be another survivor – but the thin points of glowing light from the eyes were easily visible in the black shape against the green, and gave him away for what he really was. In Borton's hand, the electrometer was awake and chirping loudly.  
  
She cupped her hand over the speaker to mute the volume and approached Quinn.  
  
"Looks like we have company." she muttered, keeping her voice low.  
  
Quinn followed her gaze to the figure by the river. He started, shocked.  
  
"Is that – ? Oh are you _kidding me_? That's impossible. I zapped him. You saw me zap him." Quinn insisted, shaking the cattle-prod.  
  
"Eddie said it would stun a robot, not shut it down." Borton reminded him.  
  
"Okay, fine. So what the hell's he doing here, then? Did he follow us?"  
  
"Must have."  
  
"How? Why?"  
  
"Dunno. Maybe he took being electrocuted personally."  
  
"So – what? He's after us now? He's got himself a grudge. A vendetta. Is that it?" Quinn asked, sounding both dubious and put-upon.  
  
"We should be okay, I think. Doesn't look like he can cross the river."  
  
As soon as Borton said that, the dread-pirate Hektor began wading through the reeds and into the water, movements stiff as he submerged himself completely and sank below the surface. Borton held her breath.  
  
 _No, he can't. His neck. Waterproofed or not, his neck should –_  
  
A moment later and Hektor reappeared on the opposite side, walking slowly up the muddy embankment toward them. There was no sign of water damage. Borton heard Quinn stomp the ground angrily. Her eyes never left the pirate, even when his slow, robotic gate evolved into an out-and-out sprint.  
  
"We should get moving." Borton recommended.  
  
"We have to let the others know." Quinn said, backing away.  
  
"Let's wait for now. Don't want to spook them. If we're lucky, the rex'll turn up and swallow him whole for us."  
  
It was a lovely thought, but probably an inaccurate one. _At least we've got a good half a mile or so on him,_ thought Borton. _Better make that count._  


* * *

  
  
Beyond the edge of the hill, a huge tree marked the border between the open area and the thick of the jungle.  
  
Quinn crouched in the bushes, listening for direction from Thomas. Strait ahead he saw the planted pathway that lead off in the direction of the hotel. Thomas informed him that the maintenance lodge was nearby, to the east. In the distance, something hooted. It sounded considerably far away. Quinn and Thomas set out, leaving the path and plunging into the foliage. The others waited in a huddle around Borton and the electrometer. For the sake of his own safety, Quinn left them without the cattle-prod. He would need to move fast. Without the cattle-prod or Thomas, the others were defenseless to any type of attack.   
  
Thomas moved as quietly as he could, while Quinn fumbled through the brush, unhappily aware he was making a lot of noise. He forced himself to slow his pace, feeling his heart pound. The foliage here was very dense – he couldn't see more than five or six feet ahead of him. He began to worry that Thomas would miss the maintenance lodge entirely. But then he saw the roof to his right, above the palms. Like the lobby building, the lodge was covered with screens. Unlike the lobby building, these screens appeared to have recently died out, leaving the lodge completely exposed.  
  
Quinn could see that the peak of the dome was directly above them. The image projected onto the dome surface gave the illusion that the sky and roof of the lodge were miles upon miles apart. In reality, they were practically touching, and Quinn could have reached out to tap the simulated sky if he so chose. Following Thomas, he moved toward the side of the lodge and scaled the hill where the pylons stood, a good six minute climb. At the top he found a steep metal staircase that lead up to the lodge door. Once there, Quinn thumbed the security card slot with the head of the cattle-prod. A moment later and the door unlocked. Carefully, Quinn nudged it open with his foot and stepped inside. The interior of the lodge was hardly larger than the RV-trailer he often slept in during digs. It was filled with machinery – thick pipes, humming pumps and something that resembled his basement water-heater. For the cave pool, Quinn guessed, wondering if the power source was separate. An underground generator, odds were.  
  
Quinn had to stand stoop-shouldered in order to be able to maneuver around the pumps and get to the open end of the room. There high, glassless windows allowed the intrusion of thick green tree branches, which further cut the failing daylight and cast the lodge in semi-darkness. Above a work bench, Quinn found a pegboard covered with tools and spare parts. He did not see a telephone, or a radio. He poked among the filters and wet pipes, inspecting a number of pressure gauges as he went along. Eventually he came to the back of the lodge and discovered the emergency exit, at the top of a ladder built into the wall.    
  
"Hey!" he called back to Thomas. "Hey! Found it! Go and get the others!"  
  
When Thomas was gone Quinn thought he could hear something – a kind of sniffing from the pipes. He spun to see a pale shape rise up through the air with tiny open jaws. It shrieked as it came. Without thinking, Quinn brought the cattle-prod out to meet it. The dinosaur landed on the tip and he heard a sickening _kssssss_. There was a puff of smoke and then the dinosaur was clinging fiercely to the cattle-prod, it's head closed around the tip. In an effort to pry it off, Quinn swung the cattle-prod wildly, sending the sizzling dinosaur flying across the room to smack against the opposite wall. It did not get back up, and he felt foolish when he saw it. Small and green – only a compsognathus. It lay on the ground, quivering in a spasm. The lower part of it's mouth was gone, and it was looking up at him with slightly glazed eyes.  
  
Curious, he crouched over it. His fingers touched one of the loose wires by the mouth and he felt a sting of static shoot through his skin. As he pulled away the compy shivered slightly, and then was limp.  


* * *

  
  
McCullough heard the shaking of the branches and raised his head in time to see Thomas emerge from the thicket.  
  
"If you would all please follow me." the velociraptor beckoned.  
  
When they arrived at the lodge Thomas approached the door, left hanging partially ajar, and pushed it open with his head. McCullough was the first to slip inside. Despite the lodge having working lights, it was very dark. He moved through the building and stumbled over something, catching himself on a wide pipe. Looking down, he spied the body of a small, green dinosaur at his feet. It was no bigger than a chicken, and it was missing the lower part of it's face. He kept walking, mindful of the machinery around him. He saw what looked like a boiler off to his side – a large, round cylinder. It was producing a very noisy hum.   
  
Behind McCullough, Irvine felt his way among the pipes, holding his hands out to keep from banging his head. Borton and Thomas went one after the other, with Borton clinging to Thomas' long tail as lead her along. Eventually they made their way to the back of the lodge, where they found Quinn perched on the middle rung of the ladder. He was trying to pry the sawyer's hatch open from underneath.  
  
"It's stuck. Think it's rusted." Quinn told them, glowering.  
  
"The ventilation turned off this morning. The steam must have gathered." McCullough pointed out. "Keep trying. It should open."  
  
Seven minutes passed. The hatched stayed closed. Quinn hopped off the rung with a frustrated grunt.  
  
"It's stuck." he growled.  
  
By the pipes, Irvine was wringing his hands together. "Don't we have any way of getting it open?"  
  
Borton started rooting around in her pockets for something. Eventually she gave up.  
  
"Don't think any of the repair tools would work." she admitted.  
  
"Maybe if we had some oil?" McCullough suggested.  
  
Quinn pointed to the opposite end of the lodge. "There's a work bench along that wall there. Might be some oil. Or a damn crowbar."  
  
McCullough took the cue and jogged to the back of the lodge. The tools lining the pegboard were designed for the maintenance and repair of robots. They were small, sleek, fragile. Nothing looked up to the task of opening the swayers hatch, and there wasn't any spare oil that McCullough could see. He turned and rested against the bench, weary. Taking his glasses off, he fogged the lenses with a sigh, and rubbed them clean with the base of his shirt. As he placed them back on his nose he became aware of a low rumble, growing louder and louder. The tools hanging over the work bench started to shake. McCullough stepped back and saw that the pipes connected to the wall were rattling, and the overhead lights were starting to sway.  
  
Suddenly, it all stopped. Dead silence, except for the humming of the boiler.  
  
McCullough held his breath. He had an inkling he knew what was coming. Even so, he was not prepared to see the wall by the door move.  
  
The wood paneling bulged as if shoved from the other side. Nails popped out from the door hinges, and the paneling cracked loudly. With a deafening roar, the head of the tyrannosaurus rex burst through the wall toward them, annihilating the staircase and front door. Fragments of shiny screen and dull wood filled the dusty air. Fully half of the tyrannosaur's bulbous, scaly neck writhed into the front of the room, great jaws drooling blue goop.  
  
McCullough remembered the allosaurus, his own words floating through his head.  
  
 _It's eaten something that's disagreed with it._  
  
So had the tyrannosaur, apparently.  
  
McCullough stared in blank horror as the enormous dinosaur continued to nose forward as far as it could, stretching on it's sturdy legs with it's mouth gaping wide. Behind him, Irvine shrieked and threw himself against the wall, while Borton clawed against the corner by the opposite window. Indignant, Thomas crowed and hissed inaudible threats in his native tongue. The tyrannosaur ignored him.  
  
McCullough saw Quinn dart from his spot by the ladder and throw the cattle-prod. It went whizzing through the air and struck the tyrannosaur's left nostril without affect. The head swung back and forth before pulling out of the lodge. Taking the opportunity, McCullough retreated deeper into the lodge just as the jaws burst through again, the thick tongue flicking in and out rapidly. McCullough huddled against the wall, searching the room. Just the one exit, and the hatch wouldn't open. The space was small and too crammed with machinery – there wasn't any place for him to hide.  
  
The head came through the hole again. The tyrannosaur moved slowly this time, massive chin coming to rest on the floor. There was a creaking groan followed by a shudder that shook the building, and then McCullough felt the entire left side of the lodge heave up a couple of feet and tilt forward like a ship with a pulled anchor. Floor panels began to pop up in a jagged breaking line as the tyrannosaur's heavy weight broke the lodge in half. On the wrong side of the fault-line, McCullough began to slide toward the waiting mouth of the tyrannosaur.  
  
Somewhere behind him, he made out the faint noise of Irvine crying. Pictured him flattened against the wall, out of his wits. The dinosaur rammed through the space between the wall, spreading it farther with each thrust of its muscled neck. McCullough, a tight-rope walker wobbling to keep his place, saw the mouth straining for him, understood with crippling terror that the tyrannosaur was going to reach him.  
  
"Errol!"  
  
McCullough whipped around to see Borton reaching out her hand to grab him.  
  
A blast of hot breath from the tyrannosaur as it rocked the front of the lodge forward.  
  
Borton's opposite arm was wrapped firmly around a nearby pipe. Next to her, Thomas dug his claws into the floor and was steady, even as the lodge continued to tip under the weight of the tyrannosaur. To prevent Borton from falling, the velociraptor held his rigid tail securely across her chest as a kind of safety-belt.  
  
"Errol! Give me your hand!" Borton urged.  
  
Pushing off with his feet, McCullough twisted in a jump, latched on to Borton, and clung to her for dear life. The huge snout and jaws slammed up against the ceiling, gnashing in a fit. A few feet away from it, Irvine braced himself by the wall to avoid pitching down into the reeking mouth. Together, Borton and McCullough formed a chain with their arms that extended to include Irvine.  
  
The front section of the lodge was almost at a fifty-degree slant, and everything began to break loose around them. Screws, pieces of broken floorboard, the great chunks of wood torn out of the wall and superstructure. Whatever wasn't nailed down swiftly slid into the tyrannosaur's mouth, all of it food for the insatiable maw blindly churning away.  
  
Dangling from Borton's hand, McCullough saw the electrometer fall from her pocket and fly past the tyrannosaur's cheek and out of the hole.  
  
On the stable side of the lodge, Quinn was trying profusely to open the emergency exit from the top of the ladder. Seeing no other alternative, McCullough hurled himself in Quinn's direction. The great head weaved to the side, and the front of the lodge was pushed to a treacherous incline, slippery with the robot's leaking fluid and fake saliva. McCullough's footing faltered and slipped, and he stumbled toward the eager mouth.  
  
As the big teeth tried to seize his long legs in a snap, he screamed, and for a moment he was on the verge of passing out. But then he felt Borton's grip around his hand tighten. Above him, she was grunting with the strain of trying to swing him just out of reach of the tyrannosaur's face. The next thing he knew, he was on the other side of the lodge, back on level ground. _Strong lass, I adore you,_ McCullough thought. Linking up with Quinn, he was able to pull Borton and the others across the teetering floor toward the emergency exit.  
  
The tyrannosaur snorted again, flaring its nostrils, sucking in the dust. It lunged forward so that the fractured part of the lodge listed further downward, and bit a sizable chunk of the remaining floor away to give it's self more access. With a low growl, the jaws opened yet again. McCullough saw the thick tongue snake out, dripping with rank oil. It was four feet long, and easily reached back to the far wall of the lodge. McCullough and Irvine pressed back against the pipes, equally disgusted. Meanwhile, Quinn was back at the hatch, and now both he and Borton were trying to work it open together. Thomas had somehow managed to attach himself to the wall like a squirrel, using his claws to hang there and watch from a distance. It was an almost ridiculous sight, and he continued to bark madly at the invasion of the tyrannosaur's slithering tongue.  
  
It moved slowly to the left, slapping wetly against the machinery. The tip curled around the pipes and valves, sensing them through muscular movements – like the trunk of an elephant. It then drew back along the right side of the recess, dragging over Irvine's shoes. The tongue stopped. It curled, then began to rise like a snake up the side of Irvine's shin.  
  
"Don't move, Henry." McCullough instructed him. Irvine said nothing, too scared to speak.  
  
The tongue slid past his face, then up along McCullough's shoulder, and finally began to wrap around McCullough's head, crunching his glasses into his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut as the slimy appendage, hot and wet and stinking of gasoline, wrapped around him and began to tug him toward the tilted side of the lodge. McCullough pressed the tongue with both hands, trying to shove it over his head. It was too heavy and slimy to get a proper grip on. He kept trying, but soon he found his strength had left him. He was having a difficult time breathing, and the smell from the hydraulic fluid was making him see stars.  
  
Just then – the tongue relaxed. A moment later and it uncoiled. McCullough felt it slip off his face and fall limply to the ground, taking his glasses with it. He scrambled away from it and saw the tyrannosaur's mouth slap shut, biting down on the tongue. Gouts of curdled blue spewed from the ruined tongue.  
  
From the ladder, Borton called out. "Errol!"  
  
"I'm okay." he panted.  
  
The lodge was jolted by a loud crack – like the snapping of an enormous wire cable – and then the tyrannosaur's head was sliding away from them. Backward, out of the hole and down the slope of the small hill towards the gully. More confused than cautious, McCullough went to the edge of the deck and peered over. The tyrannosaur had stopped at the base of the hill, and it's backside was slumped awkwardly in the mud. It looked almost drunk, hugging the hill for support. McCullough felt unexpectedly distressed to see the huge creature humbled in such a humiliating way.  
  
"Jo." said McCullough. "Jo, what's happened to it?"  
  
Borton made her way over to the edge and looked down. The robot made a feeble attempt to stand, and topped over again. Upended, it lay with its legs in the air, its tubing and metal innards exposed.  
  
"No hydraulic fluid left. I told you it would run out. You see that?" She pointed at it's legs. They were bent at odd angles, and had left long scrapes in the hillside on the slide down. "The knees didn't have the pressure left to keep it upright. The thing buckled under it's own weight. Incredible."  
  
McCullough stared numbly down at the struggling robot. It's chest was still moving, dipping in and out shallowly, and one forearm twitched and jerked. It's mouth was smeared with blue, and McCullough thought it looked deflated, like a beached whale. Delicate and helpless.  
  
"What will happen to it?" McCullough asked her, uncertain of how he should feel.  
  
"It'll lay there until it's battery dies." she explained. "It's pretty much a vegetable now."  
  
McCullough nodded. "Twice. It came after us twice."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"He's the favorite, usually. Isn't he." McCullough said with a crooked, pained smile.  
  
"I guess so."  
  
"He was certainly my favorite as a child. I had toys, you see."  
  
The admission hung in the air, a lingering reproach that made both of them flinch.  
  
"Me too, Errol. Me too." Borton eventually replied, and put a consoling arm around him. Neither bothered to point out that the machine below them was not a real dinosaur, because both knew it would be a contradictory thing to say.  
  
McCullough stared out into the dusk. The danger of the moment before was overcome by the sheer beauty of the place. Stars twinkling in the electric sky, he thought it was stunning – like the Serengeti Plain. Had there been just a touch more light, he might have seen the tiny figure making it's way out of the jungle, towards the maintenance lodge. Sword in hand and eyes glowing.  
  
With Borton's arm still around him, McCullough stepped away from the edge and let her lead him over to the ladder.  


* * *

  
  
Quinn's voice was brittle in the fresh silence. "Everybody okay?"  
  
Irvine gave a mumbled "Yes" along with the others.  
  
He was shaking. He wasn't sure why. He searched himself for a reason and was baffled when he couldn't find one. Something had upset him, that much was evident. He brought one trembling hand to his forehead and wiped away a sleek layer of sweat, trying to pinpoint the cause.  
  
In times of trauma, the brain has a way of shielding it's self from greater psychological damage. Terms like amnesia and short-term memory loss came to Doctor Henry Irvine's mind. He pressed himself to remember what went on at the lodge, imagined it was important to remember, and wound up staring at the hole in the side of the wall. Thinking _what poor craftsmanship_.     
  
He sucked in a shallow breath, dizzy. Saw the puddles of blue gunk smeared across what remained of the lodge floor. Recalled scales. A crooked set of teeth. He scrunched his face in confusion, trying to remember what had happened, and ultimately drew a blank. Blind instinct had come into play. It had driven him to hurl himself against the wall by the pipes, but after that there was nothing but little glimpses of a deep throat and round, yellow eyes. The gullet of a nightmarish lizard-shark.  
  
Irvine felt numb. Indifferent to everything, and decided that – if his brain saw it fit to block out the events that had just taken place – than it must have a good reason for doing so. And as a psychiatrist, he knew better than anyone not to question the motives of his own mind.  
  
Tentatively, he asked "Is the door open yet?"  
  
Quinn shook his head. "We still need that oil. You find any, Errol?"  
  
"Afraid not." said McCullough.  
  
Just then Irvine had a thought. He chose not to act on it right away, frowning. He was well aware of his situation – stuck between a rock and a hard place (or, rather, between dinosaurs and zombies). He supposed, of the two, he preferred zombies. Shorter, more manageable. They had smaller teeth.  
  
Carefully, Irvine approached the wrecked end of the lodge and stooped over a broken floorboard. He dipped his hands into a small puddle of blue ooze and scooped up a fist-full.  
  
"This." He murmured tiredly, "What is this again?"  
  
Borton answered "Hydraulic fluid. For pressure and lubrication."  
  
Returning to the ladder, Irvine held out his hand to Quinn. "Try this."  
  
With raised eyebrows, Quinn shoveled the ooze into his free hand and climbed the ladder. Irvine watched him smear a coat of blue along the rim of the hatch, applying it in thick globs to grease the seal. It was a difficult job, the ooze was not a cooperative substance, but in the end Quinn managed to work the door open.  
  
Sighs of relief from everyone accept Irvine.  
  
"Tom," Quinn said, "You're up."  
   
"I'll go next." McCullough volunteered, bragging that no one knew the Zombie-realm better than himself.  


* * *

  
  
On the other end of the sawyer's hatch was a wide, dusty room that resembled the stock-room of a department store. Thomas was unfamiliar with it, and traced the various stacks of boxes and shelves that crowded the space with careful scrutiny. Nothing dangerous, just storage supplies. He padded forward, green eyes flashing. Like the lobby of the Prehistoric-realm, the room was without electricity, but the grainy, artificial light shinning dimly through the adjacent window was bright enough to work with. In phosphorescent green he saw tables and chairs. To the right, a glowing green cash register, next to which was a miniature refrigerator and microwave. Neither appliance worked. A few feet away stood a rack with crackers and candy. Snack food. The people of Firdos had clearly gone to great lengths to reproduce the kind of environment common for retail employees. A convincing little break-area among the clutter. Thomas had the feeling he was inside a small portion of a larger building. He double-checked the architectural plans stored in his territorial instinct and when he knew where he was, proceeded forward, cautious and quiet.  
  
He weaved around several tall stacks of boxes, looking from side to side, moving his head with abrupt jerks. Bobbing his snout up and down as he walked, like an enormous bird of prey.  
  
Behind him, McCullough propped the hatch wide open and started to climb out. He stopped when he heard a low hissing sound, rising and falling softly like the breathing of a large snake. Hardly audible in the silence, McCullough realized the source of the sound was Thomas. He crept forward, out of the hatch, and looked up. In the darkened room he saw the orderly black, rectangular pattern of the shelves. Set out like library bookcases, they reached up to the ceiling. Moving smoothly among them was Thomas. McCullough watched as the velociraptor's head appear from behind one of the rows of shelves, then the body – sleek and angular – and finally, the long stiff tail, dipping and straitening with each step. The cramped space made Thomas' six foot height and powerful build look severely imposing, and although Thomas' strong legs were hidden by the boxes, McCullough could still hear the harsh clack of the dinosaur's claws on the floor. Apart from that sound, and the imitated hissing of breath, Thomas moved like a ghost – silent, stealthy – muscular upper torso curving around the boxes, both forearms held tightly alongside the body with the claws dangling so as not to upset anything around him.  
  
From time to time, Thomas would bend over, lowering his head below the boxes. McCullough heard a rapid sniffing sound. He watched the head snap back up and continue past the boxes. McCullough wondered if Thomas really could smell (hadn't Borton mentioned something about that on the tour?) — or if he was simply programed to put on a show.  
  
After a minute or two, the velociraptor finally seemed to notice he was being watched. Thomas jerked his head around, looking directly at McCullough – as though startled. McCullough, equally surprised, blurted out a quick "Steady on, friend. It's only me."  
  
Thomas said nothing and resumed his scan of the room. McCullough joined him, and the pair ventured deeper into the room. From what McCullough could see, the place was a dump. All around them were cobwebbed corners, dry, peeling wall paint, and the musty stink of rotten wood. Just the aesthetic he expected to find in the Zombie-realm. He came forward and spied a door, shut and locked from their side with a bolt-lock. Beside it was a desk, complete with lamp and swivel-chair. He imagined someone sitting there, writing inventory lists.  
  
"What part of the mall is this?" McCullough asked. While he was well acquainted with the Zombie-realm, there were still parts of it he had never been. He didn't recognize this one – at least not at first.  
  
"East wing, ground level." Thomas informed him.  
  
McCullough nodded, orienting himself. He could just about make out a set of square shelves directly ahead of him. Drawing closer, he felt along the shelves with his hands and realized what the objects filling the small, square cubbies were. Thomas approached and leaned his head in, using his eyes as torches to illuminate the scene. McCullough froze in his tracks, eyes widening like saucers. Then – he smiled. An enormous, delighted, Christmas-morning grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dinosaurs Mentioned:
> 
> \- criorhynchus  
> \- allosaurus  
> – hardosaurs  
> – brachiosaurus  
> – compsognathus
> 
> (thecodontosaurus and thalassomedon are both mentioned in this chapter, but neither is actually seen by the tourists)


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get hectic in the Zombie-realm when the power goes out and the group-members are suddenly separated from one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been absolute ages since I last updated, but this chapter's nice and long so hopefully that makes up for it. But do bare with me, because a pretty big chunk of this chapter is devoted to the side characters. This is intentional, and I've done it primarily so that the rest of the story from the next chapter on can focus more closely on Jo and Tom's relationship. 
> 
> Random fun facts: This chapter was heavily influenced by "Dawn (and Shaun) of the Dead", two of my favorite zombie films. And I drew a lot of inspiration from a certain Hannibal-related character regarding the paranoia and mania certain individuals undergo when things get really stressful. Also, a multitude of references. We've got one reference from a Stephen King classic about sentient trucks (extra points if you spot it), and a blatant "Supernatural" reference because, well, you know. And lastly, there's a pretty big nod to "Westworld's" infamous sequel, "Futureworld", tucked into this chapter. So many references, huzzah! 
> 
> But yes, here's hoping you like it! As always, comments and criticisms much appreciated!

. . . Tuesday: 8:01 pm . . .

 

  
As Henry Irvine saw it, there were two types of vacationers.  
  
Runners, and resters.  
  
Runners spent their vacations getting up at dawn and going to bed at midnight. Runners jam-packed their days with activities, and did everything and anything they possibly could to get the most from their time off. Runners traveled across the globe. They went to exciting destinations full of new and interesting sights. Places like Aruba, Spain, Disneyland. Firdos.  
  
Resters, on the other hand, went to places like their bedrooms. They spent their vacations sleeping, relaxing, catching up on their favorite television programs and munching on whatever snack food was close-by.  
  
Henry Irvine was a rester in the company of runners, and he was tired.  
  
Granted, the others were tired too, but there was a difference. Irvine had been deprived of sleep for much, much longer – had gone without it since he first arrived at Firdos, unable to shut his eyes in the strange new place. Beyond exhausted, he had trudged along the muddy jungle paths of the Prehistoric-realm like an obedient child. And he had done his best to keep his composure.  
  
Now he climbed the ladder out of the wretched maintenance shed and into the Zombie-realm, body aching in protest.  
  
His feet, numb in cold, wet shoes, throbbed with each slow step upward. At the same time, his stomach was so empty it hurt to stand up strait. He played with the idea of finding food again – estimated the chances were quite slim, and accepted that he would probably have to go without until he was safely back on the mainland.  
  
And while these initial bodily complaints were bothersome, they paled in comparison to Irvine's throat. Dry and swollen, it stung whenever he tried to swallow. The dust in the air wasn't helping. He was desperate for water, but so far the other group members had yet to highlight the topic of looming dehydration. Irvine wasn't sure if this was deliberate on their part or not. He could bring it up himself, but what were the odds they would listen to him? They might interpret his harmless requests for water as another round of selfish grousing. Irvine doubted any of them would take anything he had to say seriously now. And besides, did he even have the right to complain? After all, he was safe. Alive. More than could be said for Abrams or Cook.  
  
No, Irvine knew that it was possible to be uncomfortable without being ungrateful. Just because he was still in one piece did not mean he was forbidden from speaking his mind, especially if his concerns were legitimate. Even so, he decided to bite his tongue. The last thing he wanted to do, at that precise moment, was make himself the enemy again.    
  
Presently, he climbed out of the manhole and stood in the dimly lit stock room. He allowed himself to lag at the back, away from the others, searching for a place to rest. Borton stood a few feet away, draped in shadow. The others were near the front of the room. Irvine could hardly see a thing. Nervous, he scraped his bandaged hand against his pant leg and winced. In his opinion, the guides had done a lousy job dressing the compy bite. He was fairly certain he would have to get it treated by a professional doctor once he was topside. He anticipated stitches, a thought that made him cringe. He willed himself not to keep scratching at the bandages.  
  
All in all, the entire Firdos vacation experience had been – and continued to be – vastly unpleasant for Irvine. But as a trained psychologist, he had a number of coping mechanisms at his disposal. He had already gone through a number of them on his way up from the medical center. So had the others. From what Irvine had observed, McCullough's trick for dealing with stress was humor – one of the more positive coping strategies. Irvine sensed that McCullough felt things fully, but was able to handle it all by turning it into a fun little game. Quinn, on the other hand, was harder to read. Quinn appeared to be dissociating, to a certain degree. Trying to separate and compartmentalize his thoughts and emotions in order to remain calm and think relationally. Irvine had to commend him for his efforts, although he was slightly concerned with how quickly Quinn had resorted to physical threats. Irvine put his hand to his cheek, remembering the rough slap. He noticed that Borton had her eye on him.  He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about her. From what Irvine could tell, she was clearly using social coping. She had openly sought support from those around her on more than one occasion, albeit subtly. Even that ugly dinosaur of hers had served as a means of support. Irvine wondered if any of them were trying to derive meaning from the experience. Did any of them see it as some sort of challenge to overcome? Borton seemed like the kind of self-absorbed individual that would. Irvine knew better. Bad things happened, never for any reason other than that they _could_ happen. There was no meaning behind it whatsoever.  
  
Irvine felt his throat pulse painfully, and swallowed in spite of it. Tired and footsore, weary of his clothes and his companions, he stirred by the back wall, trying to overcome his surroundings. He could make it all go away, by focusing on something – anything – else. The evasion technique suggested he avoid the thoughts and circumstances that were causing him stress. This proved fairly difficult while out in the open, where he had almost zero distractions to rely on. Even so, he tried his best to pretend he was somewhere different, somewhere more predictable. Somewhere safer. His practice came to mind. A calm, quiet place he was familiar with. He let out a troubled sigh.  
  
Someone with such a nervous, un-trusting disposition would at first seem an unlikely candidate to give therapeutic assistance to the mentally unstable. In actuality, Irvine was the best man for the job, primarily because he suffered from the same instabilities most of his patients did. In his adolescence, Irvine had dealt with many anxiety-related problems, and although he had never been diagnosed with a disorder outright, it had been his hope that going into psychology would help him to control those issues. Irvine had always believed that knowing more about his own mental health meant that he might be able to curb his anxiety, or even rid himself of it entirely.  
  
Irvine had been practicing psychiatry for nearly seventeen years. His practice (located in the heart of Boston) was a small, clean little office on the second floor of an urban building that dated back to the early 1890s. The atmosphere was closed-off and quiet.  
  
While he could handle adult patients, he preferred to treat children. He learned early on in his career that he was the best at dealing with children, primarily because it was easier to fall into the position of authority figure. With children, he seldom stammered, and he never felt pressured to produce results quickly. Children were easier to control. They were patient, they respected him, and they usually received his advice with eager, open minds. That, and many of his younger patients dealt with anxiety problems of their own, which meant Irvine was able to apply personal experience to their therapy.  
  
Was he a good psychiatrist? He thought so. He had yet to receive a major complaint.  
  
One of the tricks he instilled in his patients was structure. Irvine relied heavily on repetitive routines and planned-out schedules to navigate his life, and had both his workdays and his weekends plotted by the hour. It was a partial control complex, and he was very mindful of it. Even so, knowing things in advance, being in control over himself and his environment helped to keep him calm. His theory was that, if he had time to prepare – to picture the up and coming scenarios, and choose the best and most rational ways to react – it was harder to let the fear get the better of him.  
  
For Irvine, it wasn't a matter of over-thinking things. It was a matter of being prepared.  
  
But here at Firdos, exerting control over his environment (or his peers) had proved nearly impossible. Not only because his environment operated independently from all types of control (even it's own system), but because his peers seemed to resist any semblance of order, including the order he was trying to provide them with. This both frightened, and frustrated Irvine greatly.  
     
By the back wall, Irvine's stomach growled. He slouched against the brickwork of the dark and dusty room, and waited for his eyes to adjust. When they did, his mouth fell open.  
  
The luminous glare of the velociraptor's eyes revealed an enormous arsenal of firearms. Among the rows of storage boxes were racks full of rifles, shotguns, pistols, blunderbusses. Shelves stacked with cartons and cartons of varying types of ammunition. Irvine was standing in a veritable museum of weaponry. There was even a moderate collection of bowie knives and machetes on one of the lower, back shelves. Every knife handle was delicately engraved with a tiny Firdos logo.  
  
Squinting, Irvine stepped further into the room to join the others. His breath hitched when he caught sight of the snack-food rack by the old cash register. Quinn was there, rifling through the tinfoil bags of crackers and sweets, handing them out to the others like a doting kindergarten teacher. Greedily, Irvine took three bags of potato chips at once, tore the first open, and began shoveling chips into his mouth by the fistful. The salt did little to help his throat, but he decided he could live with the pain so long as he wasn't starving anymore.    


* * *

  
Borton had to talk over the sound of Irvine's smacking lips.  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
McCullough answered.  
  
"The Zombie-realm. Or, more specifically, the Running Turkey Hunting Emporium. Buy now and get fifty percent off all cammo-wear."  
  
"East wing, ground level." Thomas added helpfully.  
  
"Right. Find any radios?" Borton asked them.  
  
McCullough shook his head. "We've looked."  
  
Moving toward the closest gun-rack, Quinn said "We should arm ourselves and head out."  
  
Irvine swallowed harshly, beginning to protest – "I've never fired a gun before in my life."  
  
"I have." Quinn said, picking up a rifle and cocking it hard with one hand. "My dad used to take me and my brother hunting all the time. Easiest thing in the world."  
  
Quinn began to root around the shelf for spare ammunition, sweeping what he found into a disorganized pile for the others to grab. Luckily, each box was equipped with a set of directions indicating what weapons it was meant to be used with.  
  
McCullough picked up a revolver.  
  
"For those of you wondering, it's about as much fun as arcade laser-tag." McCullough beamed, holding the butt of the revolver up to his nose and attempting to aim it. "We could make a game of it, even. First to kill ten zombies wins."  
  
Borton had once gone paint-balling with her father at the ranch of a moderately famous actor. It had been a fun afternoon and she hadn't been all that lousy at it, but never in a thousand years had she figured on having to fire an actual gun. She hoped it wasn't too different.  
  
Quinn's gruff voice jolted her from her thoughts. "Here." he said, handing a twelve-gauge out to her.  
  
Reluctantly, Borton grasped the shotgun, running her hands over the long, smooth barrel. Thomas stood back, eyes coldly trained on the weapon.  
  
"I mean it, Quinn. I can't shoot a gun." Irvine insisted.  
  
"It isn't a real gun." McCullough pointed out innocently. He aimed the revolver at his temple and pulled the trigger. The revolver gave off a little warning beep, and was quiet.  
  
"Look," Quinn growled, "Will you people just take the damn things." He shoved a pistol into Irvine's hands. "They're user friendly, for Christ sake, and the bots can't shoot at warm things so we've got 'em at a disadvantage this way. Head shots'll do the trick. Right, Jo?"  
  
Borton stared at the shotgun in her hands for some time before finally answering.  
  
"Oh, um, if that's where their main processors are, then probably." she replied, voice small. She thought it over and added "We're apt to be shooting through some pretty thick metal."  
  
"Not with the zombies." McCullough said, explaining, "They're like pinatas. Paper thin. Designed to go down the instant you get one in the head. Rest of the bots are quite hardy, though."  
  
"Fine by me," Quinn replied, and trying to tie a holster to his right hip. He gave up and tossed the holster aside, opting to carry the rifle alone. "Just so long as we're the ones shooting and they're the ones running."  
  
Irvine put the pistol down on a nearby box. He refused to take another gun. In the end, McCullough was able to convince him to use one of bowie knives instead.  
  
Borton felt awkward carrying the twelve-gauge. She supposed shooting it would be easier with the foreknowledge that she would be aiming at fake people rather than real ones. Even so, she felt an uncomfortable niggling in her stomach. She build robots. She did not destroy them, and now her conscious was voicing it's objections on the matter with staggering insistence.     


* * *

  
In the quiet of the desolate hunting store, a single clawed hand gripped a door marked STORAGE, and then a big, reptilian head peered cautiously out. Thomas paused there in the doorway, inspecting the store interior. It wasn't very big. Several sale signs hung down from the ceiling. Thomas moved through the store, the others trailing cautiously behind him.  
  
At the exit – a wide rectangular doorway, above which a metal security grille was lifted halfway – the raptor raised his slender head, and looked around, scanning the mall canyon. The large stretch of carpet-covered space looked very empty without the crowds that might have otherwise occupied it. Compared to the lush jungles of the Prehistoric-realm, the Zombie-realm was vastly empty. A cavernous, burnt out, barren ruin. The environment was both arresting and eerily sad.  
  
The carpet ended to reveal a cracked tile floor, with whole chunks of cement left exposed and ugly. Above, the brightly colored ceiling was worn and faded. Yellow lamps dangled down dismally, their broken bulbs filled with the collected bodied of a hundred dead flies. Square-shaped skylights in the ceiling showcased the black and empty electric-sky just outside the building. And echoing down from hidden speakers, smooth jazz. It played in spastic bursts that waxed and waned with its own ghostly reverberation.  
  
"Welcome to the Zombie-realm." Thomas said, unsure of what else to say.  
  
While his etiquette programming remained the same, his territorial instinct did not cover the area in its entirety. He went on anyway, reciting the information he _did_ know.  
  
"The Zombie-realm was modeled after Destiny USA, a six-storey super-regional shopping and entertainment complex on the shore of Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York. Unlike Destiny USA, the sixth largest shopping center in the nation, the Zombie-realm is considerably smaller, three storyes instead of six, and is therefore a structurally unfaithful recreation."  
  
A cold chill spread through the group. They stared out at the vast, forbidding mall, and felt suddenly alone. Borton thought it was an almost suffocating emptiness, worse than being underground in the control room or the medical center.

 _At least it's not raining_ , she thought sourly as the group set out into the mall.  
  
They walked along and passed the lobby building, given away by the dead-gray wall panels and the obtrusive elevator shaft sticking up from it's front. The wall-screens had long since died.  
  
"Exciting, this. Isn't it?" McCullough whispered as they moved through the empty canyon. He sounded giddy.  
  
Quinn said "Come on. You can't seriously like this place."  
  
They walked by a trio of tire-sized ceramic pots, sticking out of which were the leafless stems of tall, dead plants.  
  
"It's all right." McCullough stated candidly.  
  
"It's a death trap." Irvine mumbled, just loud enough for them to hear.  
  
"Well it is _now_ , but it wasn't always. I had fun here when it wasn't." McCullough told them. "This'll be my fourth time here. This – This realm was always my favorite." he went on, voice low. "When they shut it down after all of this, we'll have been the last to – I don't know – experience it. You've got to admit that Firdos is pretty unique, for a vacation spot."  
  
Annoyed, Quinn rolled his eyes and said "The robots try to kill you. How is that unique?"  
  
"You know what I mean." McCullough scoffed. "You can kill the robots. You can fuck them. How many other theme parks out there have this kind of level of interaction built in? Right, Jo?"  
  
"Doesn't matter to me." Borton replied, sardonic. "From now on, I'll be sticking to bird sanctuaries and national parks."  
  
In the center of the canyon several garbage cans had been tipped over, and there was trash everywhere. The remnants of paper-wrapped pretzels and corn-dogs. Half-finished cookies, empty frozen yogurt cups – their rainbow contents now a sticky pool on the dirty floor. Among them were crumbs and what looked like rat droppings. Borton was amazed to see pieces of a filing cabinet and even an overturned kiosk table. Farther down the hall, two vending machines had also been tipped over. One of them was laying on it's side, still accessible through a sheet of cracked glass. Borton eyed the bottled drinks inside, wondering exactly how old they were. Was the Zombie-realm re-stocked every night while the guests slept? Or were the drinks and leftover food merely for decoration?  
  
At the far end of the canyon they came to smaller, rundown elevator. Another non-functioning prop, the egg-shaped glass capsule (dulled front splintered into a spiderweb of thin, hairline cracks) was permanently stuck in it's concrete shaft between the first and second floor. Shards of broken glass were littered all around it. Just below the elevator was a dried-up fountain sporting bent, gray palm-trees around the edge, and a small gathering of faded pennies and empty soda cans in it's center. Some of the water pipes (considerably big) stuck out of the floor.  
  
Irvine found the whole area unsettling. It spooked him, and unlike the others, he felt considerably less safe with all the guns around. He wondered how much friendly fire he could expect from his comrades. With the last of his energy just about gone, Irvine could no longer contain his resentment for them. He suspected they would march him on, through zone after zone of unparalleled danger, ignoring his pleas, rationalizing and advice until he finally keeled right over. Or worse – abandonment. Desertion.   
  
Was it so paranoid, to suspect them of such a villainous thing? Irvine shook his head. No, not paranoid. Paranoia was the delusional belief in the inconceivable. Them stranding him in the Zombie-realm was entirely conceivable. After all, it was clear they cared little about him. Otherwise they would have stayed in the medical-center, where it was safe. Like he had suggested.  
   
Irvine kept his grip tight on the bowie knife as he walked, praying he wouldn't have to use it.  


* * *

  
Soon they came across a 'YOU ARE HERE' marquee, the poster tattered in it's glass container, and discovered they were indeed on the ground level of the shopping center. Thomas explained that they would need to make it to the other side of the third storey. The maintenance lodge was supposedly on the roof, part of an indoor parking garage.  
  
Borton approached the map, studying the outlay of each floor.  
  
To begin with, the mall was smaller. There was far less ground to cover than in the Prehistoric-realm, which meant a shorter journey to the next exit. Even so, Borton was overwhelmed by a heavy gray feeling. A lead weight had settled in the pit of her stomach, and she knew it as the familiar sensation of dread. It hadn't been there when she'd crossed through the Prehistoric-realm. Of course not. She'd had the electrometer then, her very own early warning system. Without the electrometer, there was no real way to tell if they would be walking into an ambush.  
  
The group moved on, covering ground quickly.  
  
Overhead, the lights kept flickering, and every so often the brownouts would synchronize so that the entire canyon was plunged into total darkness. This would last a total of three or four seconds – a clear result of the failing backup power – and it was during these abrupt moments that Borton expected to be knocked violently off her feet. Each time the lights came back on, she caught her breath, expecting to see an ugly, rotting face inches from her own. A trio of questions continued to rotate in her mind. When would the power go out for good? Would Thomas outlast the power? If not, what would they do?  
  
Borton was positive she could sense a crisis coming. Something impending and unavoidable. But the prospect of danger was not what alarmed her. It was not knowing when to expect it that made her head spin. She wondered if the zombies announced themselves somehow, before they attacked. She wondered what she would she do if, suddenly, she saw them in front of her. A mob rushing in for the kill.  
  
If somebody got hurt now, the brunt of the blame would fall on Borton, and she knew it. It was her idea, this suicidal journey, and any sustained casualties would inevitably be her fault. Her only choice was to keep going.  
  
_Jumped in the deep end, kido,_ she reminded herself grimly. _Either you sink or you swim._  
  
She chanced asking McCullough if he thought there was anybody left alive in the Zombie-realm. Part of her had blindly expected to find other survivors once they got there. Looking around, she saw no evidence to suggest that anybody had made it out alive.  
  
"Could they be hiding somewhere?" she asked him hopefully.  
  
"It’s possible." said McCullough.  
  
"Maybe they had the same idea to climb out as we did?"  
  
"If they're around, they'll be on the top floor. That's where most of the action happens. Well, _happened_ , anyway."  
  
"What about the zombies? Shouldn't this place be crawling with them?"  
  
"They’re around too. You can bet on that." McCullough assured her.  
  
"Think we'll get through without seeing any?"  
  
"I doubt it."  
  
"How come?"  
  
"Because we're being hunted." McCullough explained. "They sneak up on you, that’s the way they do it. Stalk you, then wait for the perfect moment. Then – bam. Sneak attack."   
  
"Jesus." Borton said. She'd figured as much, but she hated to know her theories were correct.  
  
"Oh yes. They’re quiet clever." McCullough went on. "Maybe not as clever as the pirates or the vikings. But I’d say they’re at least as clever as the dinosaurs. A lot of people come to the Zombie-realm expecting to have an easy go of it, but if you ask me, this is probably the toughest part of the park. It’s all right." he added quickly, noticing the look of fear on her face.  
  
"Like hell it is." she muttered, thankful for the twelve-gauge in her hands.  


* * *

  
Eventually they came across a host of big stone, circular benches. Miraculously, these were still intact.  
  
The benches were partially covered by long strands of receipt paper and a thick layer of gunpowder. Borton went up to one and sat down.  
  
Quinn said "We should keep moving."  
  
"Five minutes. Just five. We need it." Borton replied, letting her head roll back. It was strange, relaxing in plain sight. She was too tired to care.  
  
McCullough plopped unceremoniously down beside her on the bench. Thomas remained a few feet away, performing another sweep of the area with his luminous, green eyes.   
  
McCullough's breath was hot on Borton's ear. "So, are you going to take him home with you once we reach the top?"  
  
Borton came out of her thoughts dazed.  
  
"What?"  
  
McCullough craned toward her like a snake, inquiring again. "Tom. Are you going to take him home with you?"  
  
A flash of uncertainty in her eyes. "I can't do that. Can I?"  
  
"Can't you?"  
  
She thought about it. "Well, for starters, there's the legal issue. Tom is Firdos property. I try to take him off the island and that could be misconstrued as theft, or something worse. They could charge me."  
  
"I don't think they'll be capable of doing anything to you, once news gets out about what's happened here." McCullough said coolly.  
  
"Yeah, well, you really think it's a good idea to bring him back with me?"  
  
McCullough chuckled. "I do. Unless you think he's malfunctioning."  
  
"No." Borton smiled. "No, he's stable. Probably the only stable robot left in the park."  
  
"He'd be better off with you." McCullough commented. "If Tom stays behind they'll scrap him along with every other machine on the premises so they can start fresh. If they start up again at all."  
  
"You really think they'd try and start up again?"  
  
"Not the point. They'll scrap him either way, Jo."  
  
"God. That's awful. What a waste." Borton said glumly. The picture was an ugly one, and she tried not to dwell on it. "I could take him back with me, but who's to say he won't stop functioning altogether if we try and remove him from Firdos." she went on, allowing her true doubts to surface. "For all I know, he's got an – an electric collar built into him, or something. A security feature designed to shock his system into oblivion the second he steps foot out of the park."  
  
"If that happens, I'll bet you could figure out a way to make it work." McCullough commented, rolling his shoulders smoothly. "Even if he blows a gasket at the top, you could fix him afterward."  
  
"You're giving me a lot of credit. Thanks." she said. "But you're forgetting how advanced he is. He's got Firdos-brand batteries. Firdos-brand everything. I might be able to fix him, to an extent, but I'm not exactly equipped to maintain him for any lengthy period of time."  
  
"Aren't you?" McCullough asked with a sly droop of his eyes. "Like I said, you could make it work."  
  
"I'd love to. I just . . . "  
  
Borton became oddly quiet, face pulled into a grim frown.  
  
"He's in bad shape now, Errol." she admitted sadly. "He's leaking coolant this time. I've got a spare bag of the stuff with me. Grabbed it from the repair bay before we got out, and I've got some tools on me, too. Might take a crack at repairing him if we ever take a break, a _real_ break. But the likelihood of Tom breaking down before we reach the top is pretty high. Don't spread that around, though. I can stabilize him, I think, but he might not be the same when everything's said and done. It would make more sense to leave him here."  
  
McCullough only grinned at her. "You don't really mean that. Besides – broken down or not, he's proof of what happened here, Jo. Not only that, but he's also part of a new species. Think about it. Quantum computers. Robots that are self-aware. Hasn't it occurred to you that we've got an obligation to show the world what Tom is and what he can do?"  
  
Borton gawked at him, taken aback. "That's what this is about? Adopting Tom for the sake of science?"  
  
"Partially, but you're misconstruing things. You like him. He'd make the perfect pet. You wouldn't have to feed him, or groom him, and he could clean your apartment for you while you were away." McCullough teased.  
  
"Wow." said Borton, stunned.  
  
"Ah, so you don't want him." McCullough playfully accused. "Its just that you were very quick to want to help him back in the control room, I noticed."  
  
"Don't be dumb. Of course I want him." Borton said, chest tightening. "I just can't see it as a viable scenario. We've got to be practical. We try and take him off the island with us, I guarantee you it's not going to play out how we want it to."  
  
McCullough dropped the nonchalance and said "He's not just some toy, you know. You don't just get to throw him away once we're done here. He's a real living creature, Jo."  
  
Borton opened her mouth to protest but McCullough cut her off, ranting. "Tom has emotions. Needs. He even has wants. I know you can see that. You aren't stupid, and you certainly aren't blind. You can see he wants things. No ordinary machine acts that way. Tom is a miracle. The scientific discovery of the century."  
  
"I get it." Borton replied. "Just because I can't see bringing him home as an – an easily workable idea doesn't mean I don't care. Christ, you know I'm still going to try, anyway."  
  
McCullough sucked in a breath. "Good. Because Tom is committed to caring for you, too."  
  
That took a moment to sink in.  
  
"Programmed to care, you mean." she corrected, pretending to sound dubious.  
  
"No, he's committed. Programming has nothing to do with it. You're still hung up on the mechanics. Don't be. Stop viewing him as a machine, or even the animated fossil that he looks like. View him as an animal, if you must. A living, breathing animal. An animal that loves you."  
  
Borton whipped her head up, eyes wide and face warm. McCullough went on talking.  
  
"Like a dog, Thomas loves you," he explained, and Borton relaxed a little. "You're his world, and if you leave him here you would be abandoning him. He might even expect you to offer him a home, and when you don't, that could devastate him."  
  
"You're doing an awful lot of speculation there, Errol."  
  
McCullough ignored her. "He won't know what he did wrong if you go without him. He might even be silly enough to think you'll come back. That maybe you're just leaving him on his own for a bit and you'll come again to rescue him."  
  
She shook her head. "You're just as responsible for him as I am. We all are. You could take him, if you wanted to." she told him, secretly hoping he wouldn't accept.  
  
"Can't. Landlord has a thing about man-eating lizards from the Jurassic." McCullough joked, and Borton exhaled shakily. "And anyway, you're the only one here qualified to look after him. That, and he'd want to go with you."  
  
"If he wanted to, wouldn't he have asked me by n–" She stopped herself. Thomas had already asked to come along with her, hadn't he? And she had been quick to politely refuse. He hadn't pushed the request. Thomas was not the type to impose, and at the time the idea of taking him out of Firdos had been daft. However, circumstances since then had changed.  
  
From behind them, Irvine's voice, piqued, but hardly frightened. "Are the two of you serious? You want to move the tour guide out of this place?"  
  
"You know, in some societies, ease-dropping is considered quite rude." McCullough remarked.  
  
Irvine said "Have you considered the ramifications of bringing a Firdos robot to the surface and showing it off the way you suggest? I'm going to guess and say you haven't. I get the feeling programmers and entertainers both think the same. You're only seeing the immediate situation. You're thinking narrowly and calling it 'being focused'. For some one in the film industry especially, I'd say that's a pretty flimsy mistake. Thinking narrowly."  
  
Irvine looked at Borton, clearly expecting a response. When she didn't answer he scowled.  
  
"If you don't see your surroundings – if you don't plan ahead and try to plot out the consequences, that's how you wind up with up with a park like this." Irvine clarified. "The two of you try to bring a robot up, show it off, and we'll get a bunch of people thinking different things. Mixed things. Things you haven't factored that in to your plan. People see your robot and they might be afraid of it. They might want to destroy it, or worse. Weaponize it. How would that go? Not well, I can tell you."  
  
"You're looking at it the wrong way." McCullough argued.  
  
"No, I'm just considering the consequences."  
  
"We want to help Tom." Borton clarified.  
  
Irvine's smile was bittersweet. "This is the robot's natural habitat, and you want to take the robot out of it. Panda bears are endangered, so we cage them up. We say it's because we want to help them breed, but really, we just want them for a spectacle. The problem with scientists, and even entertainers, is that they have both an elaborate line of bullshit about how they're seeking to know the truth about things. Nature, in this case. And that line is true, but that's not what's drives you, really, is it. Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth' or 'helping others'. What it is, is that you're actually preoccupied with accomplishment. Both of you."  
  
"Henry, I know you've been through a lot, but so have we. And you don't see us being dicks about it." Borton said.  
  
"No, I see you being obtuse about it." Irvine replied, eyes downcast. "You're so focused on whether or not you _can_ do something that you haven't stopped to ask if you _should_."  
  
"This is about us leaving the medical center, isn't it. You want to go back?" Borton asked.  
  
"It would be pointless, going back." Irvine sighed. "Just like it would be pointless trying to stop you from taking your tour guide up. But I can strongly advise against it." he finished, and turned to walk away.  
  
Borton sighed wearily.  
  
"God, I'm tired." she announced, and saw Thomas pretend to yawn, throwing back his long snout, exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth. Trying to make her feel better.  
  
She straitened on the bench and looked around. It was time to start moving again. The group left the bench and moved to the far end of the canyon, where they came to a crisscross of escalators leading up to the top floor of the mall.  
  
Many of the store fronts on the lowest storey had ruined entrances – shattered windows, doors bent off the hinges. Nearly every neon sign they saw was missing at least two or three of it's letters. These store interiors were dark, full of decrepit mannequins and empty clothes racks. But the stores on the second storey, however, were fully lit and featured a wide variety of fresh, clean clothes, dried perishables and other handy items. Borton wanted badly to stop and change out of her dirty, mud-caked clothes, but knew she didn't have the time. Instead, she was able to swipe a few more bags of cookies from a convenience store before the group moved on.  
  
On the second storey, they were also spoiled for weaponry. There was a large hardware stores full of axes and shovels. Apparently, the guests of the Zombie-realm were allowed to get inventive when it came to killing their robotic adversaries. Quinn even managed to find a set of working chainsaws in a homes-and-gardens display.  
  
"No cattle-prods, though." Quinn said, setting the chainsaw aside. "Damn."  
  
"We have the guns." McCullough pointed out. "They're easily as effective."  
  
"Yeah, but I like the idea of having a backup. Something electrical. Suppose there's anywhere around here that sells tazers? No? What about a flashlight?"  
  
At McCullough's suggestion, Quinn spent several minutes rooting through the neighboring stores, and came away with a handful of useful items. Water-bottles and a medical kit from the corner pharmacy, a knapsack and pair of large camping flashlights from the hunting store. Irvine snatched up one of the water bottles and emptied it in less than a minute.  
  
"Henry, you should've said that's how thirsty you were." Borton scolded. Irvine only burped at her.  
  
The group rounded a corner and found a small, well stocked liquor store.  
  
"Thank you lord and baby Jesus." Quinn grinned happily.  
  
He came away with two large bottles of bourbon and a wide collection of pocket-sized vodka samples – the kind usually found inside mini-fridges. As he stuffed them into his knapsack, Borton said "That really a good idea?"  
  
Quinn tossed a pack of cigarettes past her face. McCullough caught them and stuck them in his pocket with a surprised but thankful nod.  
  
"We'll be waiting for the boat to come, won't we." Quinn explained. "Or whoever they send to get us. I say we wait in style."  
  
When Quinn was finished, the group resumed their cautious trek through the mall.    
  
At the end of the second storey a single, upturned shopping trolley sat at the base of one of the motionless escalators. The cart was crooked, and one of the wheels was turned at an odd angle. Alone in the debris, it was surrounded by cardboard and pieces of electrical wire.  
  
Thomas ascended the escalator, leading the way. Climbing after him, Borton became aware of a displeasing, musty odor. And just beneath it, she thought she could smell the stench of fresh blood. Uneasy, she forced herself up the last of the few steps toward the threshold. She was confused to get there and find Thomas standing motionless at the top of the escalator. Sniffing. It was darker here, several of the overhead lamps weren't on, and he had to adjust his vision again before stepping forward. A moment later, and Thomas stopped. He bent over slowly. To Borton, it looked as though he had found something just outside the steps. She held her breath and waited. Thomas signaled her over. She saw the body as she came up to the threshold. It was completely straight legged with its hands at its side, and looked like some morbid Halloween prank. Through a terrific feat of denial, Borton managed to convince herself that the tourist would eventually sit up, smile and laugh at her.  
  
Another flash of green, bright enough to illuminate a good length of the floor beyond.  
  
Borton saw the bodies on the floor, ten in all – pickled green by the light with blood darkly black. Some of them no longer recognizably human. Startled, she gasped sharply. As if to shield her from the sight, Thomas quickly blinked, and the image vanished.  
  
"No. Don't." Borton breathed. "I'm okay. Light it up, otherwise we'll trip."  
  
Thomas stared forward again, jerking his head from side to side. His big eyes swiveled in their bony sockets, casting soft rays of green light across his path. Borton felt her heart pounding. Somehow it was worse to be confronted by a sight like this. Scattered, green glimpses of mayhem. She would have preferred to take the entire, grisly image in all at once. Fully lit. But Thomas seemed intent on spoon-feeding it to her.  
  
Stepping gingerly around the bodies, Borton did her best to try and inspect each one with the small amount of light allotted her. She asked Quinn to distribute the camping flashlights.  
  
"Any of 'em still breathing?" he asked her, clicking his flashlight on.  
  
Borton shook her head, waving her own flashlight over one of the dead tourists at her feet. It was ragged with large, swollen bite-marks. A few of the other tourists were wearing torn and sooty clothing, shell casings and other makeshift weaponry sprinkled around them on the floor. She recognized some of the faces as fellow passengers from the hovercraft ride. But where were the survivors she'd seen, the robots that had been there to great the guests when they stepped out of the elevator on Friday?  
  
Borton recalled seeing the dead technicians in the repair-bay – intermixed with the frozen robots, and wondered how many of the men and women she was seeing now were real. She bent over one, a young woman with braids, and tried to check her wrists for the Firdos star-mark. The woman was young, younger than Borton, and her eyes were open. Some blood came from her nose.  
  
Quinn said "No time for that. Just keep moving."  
  
Borton nodded absentmindedly and gave him back the flashlight. She followed Thomas past the ruined corpses and around a corner, where they found part of a ruined 'Meet Santa' display. The jolly furnishings had been reduced to a a pair of large plastic candy-canes, an over-sized gift box, and the green, stained chair Kris Kringle would have once occupied.  
  
By the chair, another dead body. What looked like an older man, with a thick mustache.    
  
Keeping close to Thomas, Borton thought back to the bodies by the escalator, unable to ascertain if any had in fact been robotic. What worried her was that Cook had mentioned that the robots sometimes went into a dosing state in order to help with battery life and nightly data transfer. They would wait until they sensed motion or heard noise and then rouse.  
  
Borton blinked the thoughts away and saw an old fashioned pay-phone against the adjacent wall, standing by a tall column, covered with illegible graffiti. The receiver was hanging off the hook. She listened for a dial tone but couldn't hear anything. The phone must have been a non-functioning prop, but seeing it gave her an idea.  
  
"Errol," Borton said, "You remember how Eddie said some of the tourists came to Firdos with phones?"  
  
McCullough nodded. It took him a moment to catch on. Then he was on the floor, crawling to the body, turning pockets inside out with desperate speed. The mobile he found was badly scratched and had almost no battery left. But it worked.  
  
"You've got a signal?" Quinn asked.  
  
"Yes." McCullough replied, and dialed a number into the pad.  
  
"Who are you calling?"  
  
"My office." McCullough said, holding the phone to his ear.  
  
"Your office? Fuck that. It's the middle of the night, nobody'll be there. Call the god damn police." Quinn shouted.  
  
"Or the coast guard." Irvine suggested quietly.  
  
"Whatever – pick one." Quinn insisted.  
  
"I sincerely doubt the police will believe my story. Yes, hello officer, I'm being attacked by a hoard of malicious robotic zombies." McCullough scoffed. "Be serious. They would write it off as a practical joke."  
  
"Then tell them there's a bomb or something. There's an epidemic." Borton said. "Something that requires an evacuation procedure."  
  
"That's no good. If it was a bomb, they'd try to phone the park's security personnel and they'd get no response." McCullough maintained. "And if it was an epidemic, they might quarantine the island."  
  
Before anyone could argue, McCullough's stance changed. His call had been answered.  
  
"Ah! Tracy! Brilliant!" He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered "It's the cleaning woman. She's there on weeknights." Back on the phone – "Listen, Tracy, love, I need – what? Ehm, Mr. McCullough . . . I work there. Head designer and programmer . . . Well of course I know your name. Just because you're the cleaning woman doesn't mean – you know what? Now isn't the best time for this. I need you to do something for me and – sorry? Yes, on holiday, that's right. Pardon? No, actually, not going all that well . . . Tracy, I'd love to discuss it with you but I haven't really got time to go into detail. There's a bit of an emergency on my end and I need you to go over to Susan's desk and grab something for me. That's right. Susan's desk. And take the call back up again once you're there. No – No don't hang up. Put me on hold. Yes. Press the – It'll be the button labeled Hold, Tracy. And press it again once you've gotten to Susan's desk. Right. Good."  
  
He held the phone away from his face and sighed. "She's doing it now. It'll take a few seconds."  
  
He pressed the phone to his ear just as the other line crackled to life again. "Tracy? Are you there? Terrific, well done. Right, now I want you to have a look in Susan's rolodex and find a business card for me. You'll be looking for a name. Nigh. Harold Nigh. That's N-I-G-H, Nigh. Just let me know when you've found it . . . Color? Well, white. It should have a Firdos logo on it, if that helps . . . You've got it? Splendid! There should be two numbers on there. An office number, and a mobile number. I'll need them both. Hold on a quick second."  
  
He turned to Thomas.  
  
"Tom, when she gives me the numbers, I'll repeat them. Can you memorize them for me?"  
  
Thomas nodded obediently. McCullough went back to the phone.  
  
"Tracy? Yes, I'll have those numbers now, please. Mobile first. All right." McCullough quickly sounded off the mobile number, followed by the office number. Thomas wagged his tail in confirmation. "Beautiful. Just fantastic. Thank you so very much, and Tracy, I'm going to see to it that you're salary's doubled. Don't mention it. Keep up the good work."  
  
McCullough hung up, beaming.  
   
Quinn asked "Who the hell is Harold Nigh?"  
  
"Don't you remember? He works for the park. He's the fellow that arranged our stay here." McCullough replied. "I'll call him, tell him what's happened, and ask him to send somebody to get us."  
  
"Wait." said Irvine. "Is that wise? Contacting a Firdos employee about all of this? If he works for the park, wouldn't it be in his best interest to, I don't know, cover it up? If word of what happened here went public it would cripple Firdos."  
  
"Relax. They won't keep us here." McCullough assured him.  
  
"What makes you think so?"  
  
"How many people do you think died here, Henry? It's not just a couple." said McCullough.  
  
"That's right." Borton agreed. "We've seen dozens of tourists. People with families that are going to be wondering what happened to them. Firdos can't just cover that up. Right now, cooperation's in their best interest." she reasoned.  
  
McCullough asked Thomas for the mobile number and quickly punched the digits into the phone. "Nigh will help us. He has to. If he can't get somebody to remotely shut these robots off, at the very least, he'll arrange for somebody to pick us up. Or get the supply ship to come sooner."  


* * *

  
  
. . . Tuesday: 9:21 pm . . .

  
Harold Nigh was deep into the ninth chapter of his book when his mobile started to buzz. He pulled his eyes away from the text and watched the phone dance in its place on the soft arm of the sofa for a second, dimly remembering that he set it to vibrate just before starting his reading session. He checked his watch and wondered who the hell would be calling him at this time of night. He closed the book and held the phone up to his nose, examining the screen. He was tired from a long day at the office, and even with his reading-glasses on he had to squint to make out the numbers.  
  
The caller wasn't one he immediately recognized. Expecting the usual foreign accent that indicated some out-of-state survey, he answered, ready to disconnect.  
  
A brief moment of static on the other end of the line, and then he could hear a voice cut off at the introduction.  
  
Scottish? Huh. That was a new one. Tele-marketer, Nigh guessed, preparing to hang up. Then he caught the end of the caller's name. Stunned, he straitened in his seat, book forgotten. McCullough? The words _Regeneration Games_ popped into Nigh's head. Errol McCullough. One of the testers for the Prehistoric-realm trial. Nigh's attention was fully peaked.     
  
"Mr. McCullough? Yes, I remember you. How were you able to sneak a phone past security? Sorry? I didn't catch that last part. Did you say – zombies? You're calling from the Zombie-realm? What are you doing in the –"    
  
A string of babbled nonsense from the other end. Nigh sat back in shock. He checked his watch again and politely informed McCullough of the time. The response left his ears ringing painfully.  
  
"I'm sorry," Nigh said, "Please, don't get upset. I just don't see how it's pos–"  
  
Nigh caught the sound of rustling and scraping in the background as the phone was passed along to some one else. A pause and then a new voice, gruffer than McCullough's. American, this time, and considerably cross. The new voice did not bother to introduce himself, but instead reiterated McCullough's story, sprinkling in various vulgarities and tossing in a weighty threat at the end. Nigh was baffled. McCullough and his friend were blatantly unhappy, and they wanted to leave Firdos. Their reasons why were beyond bazaar.  
  
"Okay, all right, I think I understand." Nigh said, a little flustered. He stood up and went from the den into his study. "Something's, uh, gone wrong at the park." He repeated, and made a b-line for his desk, aiming for the laptop sitting there.  
  
More angry shouting from the man on the other end of the line.  
  
"The robots have – sorry, did you say – broken down? No, that can't be right. Okay, okay. What's that? You want me to send somebody? The hovercraft will be there on Friday if you'll just – What? No, no. Please, just stay on the –"  
  
More rustling, and with it a third voice. Feminine. Joanna Borton from Hollywood, California. Asking Nigh if he was able to shut the robots down remotely.  
  
Nigh's laptop was open and he was busy searching through his emails. Evelyn Domer had sent him something earlier, the night before. Part of an email chain originally started by Doctor Oshiro Nakamura – Director of Operations, Engineering and Control at Firdos. It had gone to board member Kathy Fielding first, and come down to Nigh as a forward from Domer. Nigh had initially skimmed through it, but otherwise ignored it. He remembered the contents being similar to McCullough's story. Something about an increase in breakdowns among the robots.  
  
Joanna Borton's anxious voice was in his ear, asking about remote deactivation.  
  
"No, no it doesn't work like that." Nigh said into the phone. "We can't shut anything down remotely. Everything's controlled from within the island. It's totally self-enclosed. If you could just elaborate for me on what's really going–"  
  
McCullough again. His words were sharp and hurried. Nigh recognized the tension in his voice.  
  
"Please, Mr. McCullough, if you would just slow down and expl–"  
   
Nigh bit his tongue, forced to listen to the story for a third time. He found a pen, and jotted the details down on the margin of his desk calendar in the same chicken-scratch handwriting that made up his shopping lists. Staring at what he had written, Nigh was speechless. He pulled his focus back to finding the email.  
  
Like many men who are loyal to their employers, Nigh found it difficult to believe that the people responsible for signing his paychecks – for giving him his Christmas bonus every year, and bothering to ask after his lovely wife Nancy and his son's little league victories – was also responsible for the mass-slaughter of what could only have been one hundred innocent tourists (presuming the park was at it's maximum attendance number), not to mention the park staff. It took considerable effort on McCullough's part to finally convince him that things had actually gone wrong in the park, and that the testers from the Prehistoric-realm trial were so far the only survivors left alive there. But it wasn't until he read through Nakamura's email that all doubt left his mind.  
  
The email included the notes of a meeting that had apparently taken place some time between midnight and three o'clock in the morning. The email included report details about how one of the robotic dinosaurs had gone against it's safety programming and injured a guest. It also specified plans to announce the resort as overbooked, and close it down for an undetermined period of time in order to locate, evaluate and solve the apparent problem with the animatronics.  
  
Nigh knew that the only way the board members would ever agree to shut down the park like that was if something had indeed gone seriously wrong.  
  
McCullough was still talking. Nigh paid close attention and began to compose a new email based on his notes, Nakamura's email, and McCullough's account. An email that would go directly to Darrel Stimpson, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Firdos corporation. It would also go to the founder and owner of the Firdos brand-name, Simon Vladamir Pavakof.  
  
When Nigh was finished he said "Mr. McCullough, please remain calm. I am going to get you people out of there. I need you to keep doing what you're doing. Head for the surface. I will notify the supply ship that's en route, as well as the coast guard. Some one will be there to meet you. Keep this phone on you at all t–"  
  
The static vanished with an abrupt click, leaving Nigh confused and wondering.  
  
"Mr. McCullough? Mr. McCullough? Are you still there? Hello?"  
  
The other line had gone dead.  


* * *

  
McCullough spat out a hefty "Fuck!"  
  
Borton didn't need to ask to know what had happened. The battery was dead. She watched McCullough throw the phone to the floor.  
  
Tentatively, she started, "We could check back at the escalator for another–"  
  
"No." McCullough said, bristling. He took a second to restrain his frustration. Calmer this time – "No. There's no need."  
  
Borton nodded tersely. "Is Nigh going to send someone?"  
  
"Yes. We still have to climb out, though." McCullough said, rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
Borton looked for a moment through McCullough, past him, out to forever and composed herself. At last she forced herself to smile and say "Well all right. At least they know now. At least we aren't on our own anymore. Let's keep going. We're almost out."  


* * *

  
Further down the canyon was a large food court. Here the lights at least were on, although they flickered constantly – so much so that Borton had to shut her eyes for long stretches in order to avoid getting nauseous. They were coming up to the midway point of the food court when Thomas halted in front of her. The group stopped along with him, and out of the corner of her eye Borton spied an old-fashioned, bronze Toyota Corolla. The car was parked in between a toy store store and a burger bar. The car was not a new model. It looked purposefully retro, but it remained relatively untouched by the surrounding deterioration. A large pink sticker on the windshield read "WIN THIS CAR!", but gave no further information.    
  
Borton heard the sound of cocking pistols behind her. Uneasy, she raised her gun along with the men.  
  
"What's up?" she asked Thomas in a half-whisper.  
  
Thomas bent his head down, snarling at a space of unlit black directly ahead of them. Squinting, Borton could just about make out a shape lurking in the shadows. Abruptly, the lights flashed and died, and were instantly replaced by green.  
  
Slowly, the figure moved into the shine of Thomas' eyes. It's lips had been torn from it's face, leaving a toothy death-grin, and it's skin was pale and bluish. A bloody gash ran along it's neck, and Borton could see the metal pistons underneath, moving as it opened it's mouth to let out a hideous moan.  
  
The zombie stared at Thomas, dead-eyed, standing uneasily on crooked legs. Thomas hissed, a low and dangerous wheezing sound. Lightning-quick, the zombie lunged forward, clutched onto his face and, opening it's mouth wide, bit down hard into Thomas' shoulder. Thomas screeched in shock and recoiled, trying to push it off – but the zombie was surprisingly strong. With jaws clamped down tight into the skin, it tore a sizable chunk of rubber from Thomas' throat like a wolf. Growling, Thomas adopted a crouching, predatory position and drew himself up to thrust his head into the zombie's stomach, tossing it angrily aside like a rag doll. From it's place on the floor, the zombie rose with eerie quickness and cocked it's head, looking at Thomas with dim, hungry eyes. It moved to lunge again –  
  
Borton shot the zombie through the upper lip and the back of it's head blew out in a spray of milky white and shattered circuitry. In that instant, she felt like she had graduated from something. She saw herself as both fierce and capable – but was not immediately guilty. She waited for the inevitable cries of outrage that her conscious would produce. _You've destroyed a robot! How could you!_ When none came she shrugged, safe and justified in her belief that she had acted correctly, and cocked the twelve-gauge.  
  
The zombies attacked. There was no sound. From the mouth of the food court poured more than a dozen vicious reanimated corpses. Some of them were indeed wearing the stolen clothes of tourists. At about the same time the struggling lights kicked back in, pulsing and disorienting, and Borton watched as the approaching crowd was turned into nothing more than glitches in a film-reel.  
  
She flinched as bursts of gunfire erupted from beside her. McCullough and Quinn had formed a line by Thomas and were shooting at the zombies. Not all of their shots were hitting.  
  
"The head!" she heard Quinn roar. "Aim for the head!"  
  
Borton realized he was talking to her. Hastily, she raised the twelve-gauge to her eye and pulled the trigger. One of the zombies tumbled forward, right arm totally obliterated. Borton was surprised by her marksmanship.  
  
"Nice shot." Quinn told her.  
  
Beside her – a round of guttural hooting from Thomas. Borton turned just in time to watch him fly at one of the zombies, tackling it to the ground and taking it's head in his jaws. Borton gazed after him, amazed. Thomas proceeded to rip and tear like an angry dog until the zombie's head had been torn completely from it's neck. Then he was back on his feet and charging at another zombie. She saw as the raptor gripped the end of it's hand and tugged, pulling the zombie's hand clean off. Wrestling the zombie to the floor, Thomas put his powerful hind limb on it's back, big clawed foot lifting and coming down again to crush the zombie's chest in like an empty soda can.  
  
The dinosaur's size, the quick movements, the hissing screams. Up close, Thomas was a much more formidable robot than the zombies. At about the height of a full grown man, Thomas easily matched them in size – and while they did outnumber him, they weren't especially smart. Thomas was quick and intelligent. His searching eyes were almost as imposing as his sharp teeth. Borton was infinitely glad he was on their side.  
  
"Hold steady." McCullough said, pointing with the tip of his pistol. His voice was unnaturally calm. "There's more of them. More coming."  
  
In the darkness Borton saw the glowing eyes of the zombies. A swarm of blinking fireflies in the night.  
  
"God, how many of them are there?" Borton said.  
  
Behind them, Irvine screamed, long and shrill, and scrambled back in the opposite direction.  
  
Borton called after him "Henry! Come back!"  
  
Irvine had already vanished into the recesses of the unlit mall. A minute later found Borton dashing wildly after him, and that was when the group broke apart.  
  
"No!" McCullough urged. "No, wait, stay together! Stay in the light!"  
  
But Quinn and Thomas were already barreling into the crowd of zombies.  
  
As the green light shrank away, McCullough found himself nearly blind. His vision was poor enough in the light, glasses or none. In the dark, it was all but useless. He turned in a full circle, feeling with his outstretched hands, commotion all around him – and felt a sharp pain in his right hand. Teeth. Something was biting him. The zombie jerked its head, and McCullough lost hold of his pistol.  


* * *

  
In the ensuing chaos, Borton gave up on Irvine and attempted to return to her spot by the toy store. When she got there, she discovered she had lost sight of Thomas entirely. She immediately began to berate herself.  
  
Why had she run after Irvine? Why didn't she keep hold of the flashlight? Why hadn't she acted smarter?  
  
Panicked, Borton screamed out for assistance. She got no reply.  


* * *

  
Meanwhile, Quinn was by the toy store, skillfully holding both the camping flashlight and the hunting rifle as he shot. Partially hidden by the interior ceiling of the toy store was another, well-polished, retractable upward-coiling security grille. A quarter of the way closed, it was the kind of storefront safeguard designed to help provide reliable protection against break-ins, theft and vandalism. Quinn skimmed the flashlight beam across it and received a blinding glare – and in that moment, a zombie rushed him from behind.  
  
Quinn screamed as the zombie sank its teeth into his neck and shoulder. He jerked the rifle back by his ear, thumbs pushing in. With an earth-shattering _blam_ , the zombie’s head snapped back, and it slumped gracelessly away. Quinn's ears were filled with a muted ringing. He clutched the space where his neck met his shoulder, blood spurting between his fingers, and did his best to feel for the size of the wound. To his relief, it wasn't large – though by no means was it minor. He would need to patch himself up, and quickly. Wincing, he held his hand to his neck, attempting to stop the flow of blood.   
  
The lights went up, and Quinn saw Irvine. At the far back of the atrium, by the escalators. Then the lights died again, and this time Quinn spun the flashlight beam in the direction of the escalator.  
  
Irvine was frantic. His eyes, glassy and unblinking, darted this way and that. Quinn saw him double-take and run from the escalator. Seconds later, he saw another figure appear at the top step, hobbling sluggishly after Irvine.  
  
Quinn waved his rifle in the air, signaling Irvine over to him. The two men met in the center of the canyon, Irvine blathering at Quinn in heated bursts. All Quinn heard was the static fuzz of a broken television set. It was only when Irvine grabbed a hold of Quinn's wrist and began to pull him forward that Quinn understood what was happening. More zombies were coming up from the lower storyes. Climbing up the escalator in a hectic que.  
  
It was like they'd thrown a stone at a beehive. The entire place was awake and alive with robots.  
   
Quinn pointed his shotgun at them, Irvine ducking away with hands over his ears, and shot four zombies as they exited the escalator. He went for a fifth only to find he was out of bullets. Irvine was on him again, shoving him out of the path of the incoming zombies. The two of them took off, across the food court toward the relative cover of the toy store.  
  
Blood ran down Quinn's arm and the pain made him dizzy. He ran, empty rifle in the one hand, flashlight in the other, Irvine in front of him and a pack of at least nine zombies on his heels. Just before they reached the toy store one of the zombies managed to take a flying jump at him. Quinn spun to punch the zombie away, knuckles cracking on the metal jaw, and his flashlight was knocked out of his hand. He saw it land with a crack on the tile floor, saw the light die instantly. He was engulfed by darkness.  
  
Above the ringing in his hears, he heard Irvine shout "Over here!"  
  
He followed the sound and reached the store interior as the lights came back on. Just inside the store, mounted to the right wall corner, Quinn saw a removable awning featuring a crank box. Quinn threw himself at the crank handle and began to turn it, winding the chain hoist and dropping the grille down over the threshold until it touched the floor jam. Putting all of his weight into the turn, Quinn heard the crank click. The grille was locked into place.  


* * *

  
Utterly relentless, the zombies came in staggered waves. For every one that Borton brought down, two more seemed to appear in it's place. Not every shot was dead-on, but more than once she was able to separate a limb from it's owner. Eventually, ammunition ran low. With the last of her clips empty, Borton began to retreat in the wrong direction. The zombies advanced on her, mindful of the gun.  
  
_They must think I still have bullets._  
  
Borton stopped when she felt her back hit the wall, and paled. The zombies slipped silently out of the darkness to form a tight line in front of her. Now she was cornered by a half dozen drooling corpses, and her gun was useless. The zombies inched closer, starting to move apart, and illogically she thought: _Aaaand cut. Okay, guys, that was excellent. Got everything we need that time. Now go and have makeup take those prosthetics off, will ya?_  
  
She was too stricken to fully believe that these machines were going to get her, that this was how her life was going to end. An echo of facing down the gullet of the rex. The impossibility of it wrapped her firmly in a blanket of protective cheerfulness.  
  
_Not to me. Can't happen to me. The director yelled cut, didn't you hear him?_  
  
One of the zombies parted from the ring to lurch at her, and that was when she saw the sleek body of the velociraptor descend from the wall just above her, a flying squirrel diving from a tree branch – _when did he get up there?_ – and shoot into the massing crowd with devastating accuracy. Thomas was heading swiftly for the car, lanky arms tucked tightly to his sides, a torpedo on target. Desperately, Borton followed in his wake as he cleared a path through the hellish mob of chattering teeth.  
  
Halfway to the car Borton felt a tight, cold strangle on her left ankle, and was quickly dragged down into the flurry of stomping legs. She tucked into herself, arms around her head, unable to stand, and saw the thing that had attached its self to her foot.  
  
Most robots are singular units. Individual pieces do not work independently from the whole. Take the muffler off the car, and the muffler will not try to slither away like the secondary half of a newly dissected worm. Likewise, the car will experience a certain amount of breakdown while lacking the muffler. With the animatronics of Firdos, this was not entirely the case. Borton was shocked to learn that the zombies, at least, had the ability to operate as separate parts. When the arm was removed from the zombie's torso, it took on a self-sufficient life of it's own. It became a newly formed machine with a built-in desire to protect it's own functionality.  
  
Like an angry spider, the disembodied zombie-hand clung to Borton's boot with grim ferocity. She slammed the gun against it – one harsh slap – and knocked it away. She was amazed when it shook its self off and again moved to snatch at her shin, more by the motion of the fingers than the power of it's wasted wrist.  
  
_The fuck is this? Fucking Adams Family . . . ?_  
  
Revolted, Borton frantically drew away. The index and middle fingers felt ahead like antennae, found their way back to her, the thumb and little fingers scuttling the hand along efficiently. Before they could reach her again, Thomas's narrow head appeared just above her and plucked the hand off the ground. With a single, audible crunch, the hand was wasted between Thomas' harsh jaws.  
  
The next thing Borton knew, her arms were winding around Thomas' neck, and he was pulling her up so she could seat herself on his back. It was clear to Borton that he meant to ferry her across the sea of monsters toward the car. She felt a kind of exhilaration as she hoisted herself on to him. All of that Ornithomimus racing was going to come in handy.  
  
Velociraptors are swift, strong hunters, and astonishing jumpers. From atop his back, Borton felt Thomas duck into a sudden crouch and spring up. In a single heaving effort he flung himself through the air, and landed sprawling on the tile. The impact scraped his face, but he reacted with a mild bark, as though it was a kind of game he was playing. The floor is lava. The mall is zombies. Tag, you're it.  
  
Before Borton could react, Thomas jumped again, easily clearing the heads of the last few zombies to land a foot and a half away from the Corolla. Disoriented by the quick rise and fall, Borton stumbled off of Thomas' back and slumped against the drivers-side door.  
  
With his agile hands (deftly designed for manipulating objects), Thomas yanked the metal handle up –  
  
_Is it locked please don't let it be locked why would it be locked oh please –_  
  
– jerked the door open, and ushered Borton inside. A moment later and he climbed awkwardly in after her, slamming the door closed from the inside with his mouth as a small wave of zombies surrounded the car.  
  
"Lock it! Lock the doors!" Borton screamed, wiggling across the gearshift to the passenger's side door. She slammed her hand down on the child-safety lock just as a zombie leapt against the windshield with a thick _whump_. Borton jerked upright and clambered into the backseat to check the rest of the doors. The car was secure.  
  
The zombie was still at the window, smacking it's dead arms against the glass, trying to bust in.  
  
_Can it break the glass? Can it get in?_  
  
Thomas watched, perplexed, as Borton quickly dove to the floor of the car and wedged herself under the base of the back seat as best she could. A second later and the banging stopped. Just as she had hoped, the zombie was unable to read her heat signature through the thick metal of the car seats.  
  
She whispered up to Thomas, "Is it working?"  
  
Thomas, who could see out of both the front and side windows, took a moment to respond.  
  
"I believe so."  
  
_Yes_ , thought Borton. She chanced a peak out the window. Currently, the zombie was milling around. It had lost track of her.  
  
"Are you injured?" Thomas asked, making her jump.  
  
Borton looked herself over. She was bruised and winded, but more or less unhurt.  
  
"I'm fine." she told him.  
  
The car interior was incredibly small, particularly for a dinosaur as large as a velociraptor. Borton had no idea how Thomas could manage to cram himself into such a confined space, and look so nonplussed by it. This close, she could see the small mechanical twitches in the muscles of the flanks. The fake zombie blood, crusted on the claws of the hand. She could see the fine pattern of striations within the scales, the ruffle of his feathers and the folds of skin in the neck below the jaw – where the first zombie had bitten him.  
  
Indicating Thomas' neck, Borton said "What about you?"  
  
"External damage. There is no need to be concerned."  
  
Borton let her head fall against the car floor with a weary sigh. Thomas stared at her, and all at once she became very aware of how close they were to one another. Of the line of Thomas' back, hunched like a cat in the tiny front seat, tail curled around himself comfortably. It would have been incredibly easy for her to reach over and touch the skin of his hip. To pet him. She wanted to, for the sake of having something relaxing to do. Instead, she curled her fingers into the front of her shirt and looked just beyond Thomas' slender head to where the toy store was. Although she could not see it, the space just outside the toy store entrance was filled with a small sea of moving bodies.    


* * *

  
The coiling grille curtain, made with thick galvanized steel rods and tubular aluminum spacers, sported a six-inch lattice pattern that allowed for an incredible amount of visibility. Quinn saw the zombies strike the grille and rebound, momentarily confused. It only took a minute for them to realize what had happened. Then, they were stuffing themselves in droves against the bars of the grille. Groaning and reaching their long, disgusting arms through the lattice gaps to claw the air just in front of it. Quinn could hear the squeal of their teeth on the metal as they chewed the bars – as their combined weight strained the metal inward.  
  
Together with Irvine, Quinn stepped back from the grille as the zombies slammed into it again and again. With each impact, the heavy steel bars creaked. Soon, even more zombies joined in. The grille, although bent slightly, held.  
  
"Thank god." Quinn muttered. He took a second to catch his breath, pulling air deep into his lungs through his nostrils, lips pressed together tight.  
  
When they were sure the zombies couldn't get in, Quinn and Irvine left the grille and went around the store in a circle, inspecting the aisles. The store was conservatively small, and it took them less than two minutes to reach the back from the front. They crouched as they walked, on guard.  
  
"Don't think there's any in here." Quinn said as they finished their lap around the inner aisles. "They must be programmed to stay out there, or something. Only go into a store when there are people inside."  
  
Irvine said "No way out."  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"There's no other way out. Did you see one?"  
  
Irvine looked sickly. It was plain to see he was badly shaken  
  
"No." Quinn answered. "Didn't even see a break room, come to think of it."  
  
"Then we're trapped again." Irvine said, and grabbed the nearest thing to him. A large, stuffed teddy bear with a heart on it's stomach. He spun on his heel to face the grille and sent the bear soaring angrily at the zombies. It landed with a feeble plop a foot or so away. Boiling with rage, Irvine screamed "How can you do this to us! We made you! Why can't you just leave us alone!"  
  
Bowie knife in hand, Irvine stormed off to the back of the store. Quinn followed after him, confused.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Maybe there's another stash of bullets somewhere around here." Irvine said.  
  
"In a toy store?"  
   
Irvine ignored him.  
  
Quinn leaned back against the protruding end of a shelf, defeated. Dryly, he said "What'll you do once you've got the bullets, Henry? You don't like guns."  
  
Irvine was inspecting a shelf full of happy-faced dolls. He looked up from his searching, expression pained. "You can shoot."  
  
"Yeah, and risk blowing a hole in the gate big enough for those things to get through."  
  
Irvine opened his mouth to argue, but said nothing. Quinn was right. It was pointless. After all, what was the real likelihood of them getting out of there alive, anyway? Very slim. Almost non-existent, and both of them knew it. And even if they _did_ manage to find a way out of the toy store, where would they go now that Borton and her robot were missing. It wasn't like he or Quinn knew the layout of the mall the way Thomas, or even McCullough, did.  
  
Irvine put his hands to his face, exhausted. Quinn came over to him and in a sympathetic tone said "We'll just, uh – why don't we take a breather. Okay?"  
  
"Okay." Irvine said, and let himself slide down to the floor to sit.  
  
Quinn swung the knapsack off his shoulder and unzipped it. Withdrawing a roll of gauze and a miniature tube of antiseptic ointment from the medical kit, he proceeded to tend to the bleeding bite-mark on his neck. It was difficult to do without a mirror, and eventually he had to ask Irvine for help.  
  
"Why do I have to –"  
  
"Because you're a _doctor_ , Henry." Quinn said, and tossed him the tube of ointment. Remarkably, Irvine caught it.  
  
"So are you."  
  
"Yeah, but you went to medical school."  
  
"Fine. All that blood, though." the smaller man grumbled, fiddling with the cap on the tube. Once he'd gotten it off, he said "There's not a lot of this stuff in here."  
  
"Has it got a numbing agent? Use it all, if it does. This thing hurts." Quinn scowled, poking at the raw and tender skin under his jawline.  
  
Despite Irvine's aversion to blood, he managed to do a fairly decent job of patching up the wound. When he was finished he retreated to the check-out counter, scratching at his finger again. Randomly, he asked "I can understand zombies with sharp teeth. But why – in a theme park designed for kids – would you have dinosaurs with sharp teeth?"  
   
"I think they were going for realism." Quinn replied, returning the medical kit and rest of the gauze to the knapsack, and slinging it back over his shoulder.  
  
Irvine nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. He began studying the handle of his knife. Quinn watched the little man place the tip of the knife against his finger, playing with the bandage. Quinn flinched out of instinct, but nothing happened. Irvine set the knife down in front of him with glazed eyes. Quinn didn't like the look of him – the distant expression on his face. The vagueness there. Quinn had seen it before, in his classroom (of all places). Students whose grades had plummeted into an ongoing spiral and refused to recover often bore that look, and while the pressures of academic life in no way compared to the hell of being chased by robotic zombies, Quinn saw that Irvine bore the same, exasperated look.  
  
Quinn decided to try something.  
  
"So . . . Anna?"  
  
Irvine's lips pulled into a tight frown.  
  
"Who is she?" Quinn asked hesitantly. He felt like he was treading on thin ice.  
  
"She's my secretary." Irvine said, shutting his eyes.  
  
"Oh yeah? What's she look like?"  
  
Irvine inhaled sharply through the nose. "Blonde." he said. "Pretty. Beautiful, actually."  
  
"Turns a black-and-white picture technicolor?"  
  
"You could say that."  
  
"Nice." Quinn told him, and flexed his legs. Secretly he plotted out his moves. He was by no means resigned to stay in the toy store, but for the moment he was simply too exhausted to think of a decent plan. Making idle conversation was easier. "So miss Anna with the blonde hair, does she know you exist?"  
  
"In a way. I'm her employer. It's strictly professional. Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?"  
  
"Afraid not."  
  
"No dinosaurs there." Irvine said regretfully. "You wouldn't like it. She does. She has a picture on her desk. Of the falls, that is."  
  
"You should take her there."  
  
Quinn waited for a response but never got one.  


* * *

  
Thanks to the combined body heat of it's occupants, the tiny Toyota Corolla had become unbearably warm. The windows were fogged with perspiration, and Thomas had to slide his nose along the glass to access a better view. Behind him on the floor of the car, Borton had managed to wiggle out of her shoes and socks and was presently contemplating whether it would be inappropriate to remove her shirt in front of Thomas. The air in the car was heavy, and it made her feel fuzzy and wrong.  
  
Impatient, she asked Thomas to describe the scene outside.  
  
"The area around the car is free of robots, but I would not recommend moving. The majority of the robots seem to have gathered around the entrance to the toy store. I believe Doctor Quinn and Doctor Irvine are inside the store." Thomas told her.  
  
Trying to sit up, Borton said "Are they safe? Can the zombies get at them?"  
  
"They are trying, but it appears as though they are currently unable." Thomas explained, and proceeded to describe how the zombies were actively chewing the bars of the security grille into silver thinned sections.  
  
_They're like hyenas_ , thought Borton. "We have to do something. We have to get them out of there." she said.  
  
"You are out of ammunition." Thomas reminded her.  
  
"Yeah, and you're wounded." she pointed out.   
  
Thomas thumbed the rip on his neck with a big clawed finger. A few droplets of blue hydraulic fluid leaked out. "My damage is only external, I can assure y–"  
  
"Cut the crap. I meant your coolant problem. Why do you think it's boiling up in here? You're baking us like a cake, Tommy-boy." Borton said.  
  
"I apologize."  
  
"It's okay. If I had more room to work with, I'd try to fix you right now." she lamented. It was very frustrating. She had the spare bag of coolant on her, as well as the tools, but she needed more space in order to properly repair him. "Anyway, you can't go out there, and I can't go out there. We're stuck just like Henry and Michael are stuck." she groaned unhappily. "You see Errol anywhere?"  
  
Thomas jerked his head from side to side and said "Mr. McCullough is by the elevator, in a pipe."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Mr. McCullough is hiding inside a pipe." Thomas repeated.  
  
Wedged inside a pipe was more like it. According to Thomas, McCullough had separated himself from the others by a considerable distance. He was on the other side of the food court, by the elevator. There was a stack of large, plastic pipes piled behind the elevator shaft – likely part of the drainage arrangement for the individual elevator fountains that decorated each storey. McCullough had apparently backed himself into the nearest one. Borton pictured him scrambling like a poor bastard toward the hiding spot. Thomas calculated that they were meter pipes, a very tight fit for a man, but from what Thomas could see the zombies that were roaming around the elevator couldn't come in after him.  
  
"Well, that's just great." Borton sighed. "We're all stuck. Split up, and stuck. Yee haw, ain't this fun."  
  
"I'm sor–"  
  
Borton put her hand up and Thomas fell silent.  


* * *

  
Irvine did not like to be confined. He took every opportunity to silently show it. In the end, Quinn had to put on his classroom voice and plainly tell him to stop fidgeting.  
  
"There's a door here." Irvine said after a while.  
  
Quinn's eyebrows scrunched together. "What?"  
  
"There's a door here." Irvine repeated, and pressed his shoulder against the heavy shelf he was leaning against. "I can see it. Help me."  
  
Together, he and Quinn were able to push the shelf out of the way.  
  
"You were right." Quinn said, ignoring the new flare of pain in his shoulder.  
  
The door resembled a typical fire exit, and common sense suggested it would lead to a feasible escape route, provided it was there to meet actual fire safety requirements. However, if it was there to add to the believable atmosphere of the mall, then odds were it didn't lead anywhere. The door featured an alarmed crash bar. Quinn was hesitant to try and open it. The bar looked like the kind of anti-shoplifting device that would sound a loud, audible alarm if it wasn't disabled by a manager's key first. The last thing Quinn wanted was to draw even more of zombies to their location.  
  
Irvine, on the other hand, didn't seem to care. He pressed against the crash bar and Quinn stood back, dubious. While no alarm sounded, the door appeared to be locked.  
  
Irvine turned in a circle. "Where's the key? Where would they've put the key?"  
  
"Maybe there is no key." said Quinn.  
  
Irvine's eyes searched the room. Then he faced the door and gave it a good, harsh kick.  
  
"Help me. We can break it down."  
  
Quinn shook his head. "Can't do that. Moving that shelf wasn't good for my shoulder, man."  
  
Irvine's teeth scraped together in order to stop a wretched sob from escaping.  
  
"Well I can't do it alone, I'm not strong enough." Irvine pleaded. When he saw that Quinn refused to help him, he dropped to his knees in front of the crash bar and positioned the bowie knife over the lock.  
  
Quinn reached a hand out – "Think that's a real bad idea."  
  
Irvine dodged out of his grip.  
  
"I want to leave." Irvine insisted, nostrils flaring. He started scraping away at the lock with the knife.  
  
"Those things are out there." Quinn said. "We don't have any bullets left." he added, pointing toward the front of the store, where he'd left the rifle. Irvine kept scraping. "Henry, let's just sit and think a minute, huh?"  
  
"I don't want to stay in this room anymore!" Irvine screamed, brandishing the knife.  
  
Quinn's eyes narrowed, and the knapsack full of medical supplies sagged on his shoulder. All at once he felt terrifically drained.  
  
"Right. Whatever you want, man." Quinn replied, done in. He left Irvine at the door.  
  
Returning to the front of the store, Quinn took a seat by the cash registers to he could keep an eye on the security grille. He propped his arms on his knees and buried his head against them with a harsh sigh, shoulder pulsating in time with his heartbeat. In the distance, he thought he could hear the faint sound of scratching as Irvine resumed his work on the lock.  


* * *

  
In the absolute disorder of the Zombie-realm, Borton tried to think. The thoughts that came first were about her home. About Hollywood and her tiny, air-conditioned apartment. About the workshop, the interns. About her life in general, and her future, provided she wound up having one. She would move, for a start. Find a bigger place, lord knew she could afford it. And as for the workshop, she would clean it up. Rearrange some things. Make it her own. And the interns – she would invite them for a drink. Each Friday. And the whale . . .  
  
She would build the whale. But first, she needed to escape. Not just the confines of the Zombie-realm, but of Firdos entirely.  
  
How?  
  
The lump of amber in Borton's pocket, along with the host of different repair-bay tools, was digging painfully into her hip. Floundering, she felt for her background, found some strength in the memory of her father, in the concept of asking "What would dad do?" – but not enough. She had far surpassed her father's hardships, understanding that he had never encountered a situation like this, and realizing that there was no experience of his that offered her something to pull from. She tried to gather herself, but a noise was intruding.  
  
In the front seat, Thomas was purring.  
  
_No, that's not purring._  
  
This noise was different. Sharper, more unpleasant. This was a high pitch buzzing sound, and it was coming from the velociraptor's head. One long continuous tone.  
  
_That's the fan inside his head. It's struggling to keep his CPU cool._  
  
That worried Borton. There wasn't enough ventilation in the car for either of them to cool down. That, and all the dust and ash in the air resulted in conditions that were less than ideal for a failing CPU. Not to mention the fact Thomas had been up and active since early that morning. The last time Borton could remember him entering a dosing state was the night before, and here he was, now, nearly twenty-four hours later, still going. Still active. And not only that, but he was overclocking himself too. Increasing his actions, running his processors at a higher speed than it was probably designed to run in order to operate free of the Firdos system. Doing that was no doubt producing additional heat, and draining his coolant even faster. And likely putting strain on his body overall. He would freeze up soon, and then he would shut down.  
  
"Tom," Borton started, "You do calculations? What are the odds we'll get out of this alive?"  
  
"We?"  
  
Borton rubbed the bridge of her nose, reeling.  
  
"Umm, right." she began again. "Think we ought to address something, here. While we've got a second."  
  
Thomas squirmed in the front seat, suddenly anxious. Borton kept going.  
  
"You want to come up with me. Don't you."  
  
He looked at her quickly. "I am very sor–"  
  
"Let me re-phrase that. Tom, will you come up with me? Please?" Borton blurted, hoping to evade another round of apologies. "I think you should. You're sort of, well, an endangered specimen now. I mean, you're very special. Not just to me, but in general, and I'd like to protect you. I owe you that much. You've saved me how many times now? And, uh, it'd be nice . . . you know . . . having you around."  
  
It felt like ages before Thomas finally answered her.  
  
"I am special to you?"  
  
She was surprised at how quickly the answer came. "Yes."  
  
A beat while he processed.  
  
"I would not fit in." Thomas said reluctantly, reciting her own words back at her. "There are not many dinosaurs where you live. I would not be happy."  
  
Borton groaned her frustration. "I would make you more robo–erm–dinosaurs. How's that? I would make you as many dinosaurs as you wanted. Hell, you could even help out at the workshop if that appeals. What do you think?"  
  
"I . . . would like that. Thank you." Thomas replied sweetly.  
  
"Don't mention it." Borton said, brow furrowing. _Of course, I can't exactly take you home with me if I'm dead. Can I_ , she thought to herself grimly. She shut her eyes, wanting to sleep and knowing that she couldn't.  


* * *

  
Slumped against the fire door with his head angled against the crash bar, Irvine was suspended between his last view of Anna in the pristine white of his practice lobby, and the sound of the zombies – the knife still in his hand. He was held there and he could not stand it. Anna was unbearably beautiful. Petite with a heart-shaped mouth, she seemed to shine like she was on fire. Looking down with closed eyes, Irvine saw beyond the bandage on his hand, saw through the cloth to the bite marks on his finger, through his skin to the wound and the infection underneath. Felt the cold coil of wire worms and metal insects crawling just under the flesh. Knew they could not be cut away. Looking back up, he saw Anna's face, stripped of skin, metal endoskeleton freshly polished and covered in a mass of the wriggling steel worms.  
  
In the world of the toy store came a short scream from Irvine's sweating face, thin and high. This piercing noise startled Quinn awake. By the time Quinn arrived at the fire door, Irvine was in perfect command of himself. But Quinn knew better than to mistake composure for ease.  
  
"Nightmare?"  
  
Irvine nodded.  
  
Quinn stood over him, poised with the rifle in his hands. He thought Irvine looked much smaller than the nearby toys, as though he had compressed himself.  
  
"Uhmm, feel like a snack break?" Quinn offered. "I've got chips and, uh, some drinks and stuff."  
  
After a minute, Irvine spoke up. "Yes, all right."  
  
Irvine came to the front of the store with the knife cradled close to his chest. In the florescent light, he looked ghoulish, and his eyes bulged at the center of dark circles.  
  
Quinn set to work rifling through the knapsack. This time he pulled out one of liquor bottles. After taking a hearty swig, he offered the bourbon to Irvine.  
  
"We shouldn't." Irvine countered halfheartedly. He wound up taking the bottle anyway, and after a few rounds of coughing and sputtering, got a rhythm down. The bottle passed back and forth between the two men until it was empty.  
  
For a while, they sat in silence.  
  
"She won't come back." Irvine said casually.  
  
Quinn, drowsing in the corner, popped his eyes open with a puzzled "Huh?"  
  
"Jo. She won't come back."  
  
"You think she's still alive?"  
  
"Of course she's alive. She's alive, and she's already left us." Irvine went on. "Probably long gone by now."  
  
Quinn shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the floor. "Jo's not going to leave us here, Henry."  
  
"Oh. She will." Irvine maintained. "She will because she's in on it."  
  
A tiny crease appeared between Quinn's eyebrows. Carefully, he asked "In on what?"  
  
"This." Irvine said, gesturing to the toy store with a wild wave of his hands. "All of it. You heard that technician. Before, underground. This was probably an inside job. Corporate . . . espionage . . ." he finished, accentuating each word with a thrust of his index finger.  
  
It took Quinn a minute or so to understand what Irvine was implying.  
  
"Jo doesn't work for Firdos." he said, head tilting to the side. "She's got her own production company in Hollywood."  
  
"Yes, and it's failing. Her father died and now she's struggling to even keep it. You can see it plain on her face. She's in bed with Firdos, I know it." Irvine replied. Quinn was surprised at how coherent he sounded. "She's a robotics expert. It fits." Irvine added calmly.  
  
"Just because she can build robots doesn't mean–"  
  
"And then there's her tour guide. Her _dinosaur_." Irvine interrupted, a sour edge creeping into his voice. "That dinosaur is the only one that hasn't gone haywire. Isn't that strange? She's had ample time to reprogram him, you know. That's probably what she's done. In preparation for all of – of this." he said thickly. "And she wants to take it to the surface afterward. Did you know that? She wants to bring her tour guide out of the park."  
  
A beat.  
  
"It's an experiment, is what it is." Irvine whispered, face suddenly rigid. "A trial."  
  
"It _is_ a trial, Henry. Christ, we already know that."  
  
"But not to test the park. This was – is – something else. I can see it now. Jo's in on it." Irvine said, licking his lips.  
  
"You're plastered. You had too much."  
  
Irvine said "What about Errol? Hacked into their systems nice and quick, didn't he."  
  
"He's a programmer. He knows his stuff." Quinn explained, beginning to get nervous.  
  
"He knows _their_ stuff, yes." Irvine agreed. "Think about it. He had the chance to phone the police just now, but he didn't. He wouldn't, would he, even when you and I recommended it. He went ahead and called that Firdos man instead." Irvine went on.  
  
"I think you're focusing on the wrong things, here." Quinn told him, shoulders tensing.  
  
"They were sent along to observe, to get the inside prospective. Only they didn't expect there to be survivors, you see. They didn't expect us to last this long."  
  
Irvine smiled, and Quinn felt a shiver run up his spine.  
  
"Jo and Errol want to get out of here too. They're survivors, same as us." Quinn argued.  
  
"They're only pretending. The robots won't hurt them. They stood in front of a tyrannosaurus rex and they didn't die. You can't tell me that's just coincidence." Irvine protested, cold smile crooked on his face.  
  
"It was Jo's idea to escape." Quinn asserted.  
  
"To lure us out. You can't see the forest from the trees, but I can. I can." Irvine assured him smugly. "I know what you're thinking, though. I can read it on your face. I do that for a living – read people's faces. I'm very good at it. So stop looking at me that way, because I'm right. You know I'm right. I'm always right about people, about what they're hiding underneath it all."  
  
Quinn's skin was beginning to crawl. He pulled his eyes away from Irvine's face and said "Henry, uh, maybe you ought to lie down. Get some sleep."  
  
"I’m not tired." Irvine said briskly. Settling again, he asked "How does your shoulder feel?"  
  
Quinn's hand instinctively reached for the bandages by his shoulder. "It’s fine."  
  
"Yes." Irvine nodded. "Yes, of course it is. How many politicians do you suppose come here each month, on average?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"World leaders, too. Politicians and world leaders."  
  
"Don't know. Why?"  
  
"This – This was just a test, so they used regular people. People like you and me. They want to copy us, you know." Irvine sighed, as if it made sense without further description. "They want to build duplicates to send back out. Duplicates of everybody here. Adults, kids. All the influential ones. They're trying to take over the world."  
  
Quinn stared at him.  
  
"Ummm, what's that film?" Irvine droned. "The one with the housewives? Black eyes. Soulless eyes, like a doll. They kill the originals and take their place. They kill the originals. Or, no. No." he paused, indecisive. "It's more like the pod people, isn't it. I don't watch that many films. Jo would know, wouldn't she. Oh, she would _know_. The one with the plants. They grow, they take you over. You become one of _them_."  
  
Irvine held up his wrist, showing Quinn his own tattered bandage.  
  
"I can feel it. Growing. All the wires and microchips. We won't survive this. We're already infected. It's already in the blood stream. You can feel them too, can't you. The nanobots."  
  
Quinn's mouth had gone dry.  
  
"Soon, we won't remember who we were." Irvine was saying. "We'll be like them."  


* * *

  
"Have to think." Borton said. "We're outnumbered. Obviously, nobody has any ammo left, otherwise somebody would still be shooting. We'd have heard it. Umm. We have to think of a way to get everybody back together, get more ammo, and get the hell out of here. How do we do that, Tom?"  
  
From the front seat of the Toyota Corolla, Thomas clucked apologetically.  
  
"We have to get to that toy store."  
  
"I do not know how, Joanna."  
  
Borton said "We need a bulldozer or something. That's what we need. Or a god damn tank."  
  
A beat.  
  
Borton bolted upright, saw a zombie shambling in circles a little ways away from where the car was parked, and quickly ducked back down. Thomas loomed over her, curious.  
  
Brain screaming like a smoke alarm, Borton thought about bulldozers and tanks. She thought about vehicles in general. Specifically the vehicle she was currently in. The Firdos technicians – decorators – _whoever_ – had put it there for a reason. Why had they put it there? It didn't matter. What mattered was _how_ they had put it there.  
  
Borton figured they would have probably driven it in to the Zombie-realm somehow. Through a secret passageway? Up from the supply-ship docks? Maybe they brought it over on the hovercraft. The guest elevators that lead in from the hovercraft jetway were more than large enough to accommodate a car. Then again, it was far more practical that the car would have been delivered in manageable pieces. The technicians could have put it together right there in it's little place and left it to rot.  
  
Unless it was just a prop. It didn't look like a prop. If it wasn't a prop and it hadn't been reconstructed from individual parts, there was a high chance the gas tank could still be full. It was a long-shot, Borton knew, but if the car was real, all she had to do was find a way to start the engine and she could roll on out of there. Try to pick the others up. Easier said than done, since there were no keys in the car and she knew next to nothing about hot-wiring cars. Neither did Thomas.  
  
"Why should you?" Borton muttered, trying to wiggle her way around him and into the front seat without drawing too much unwanted attention. "Not like they're going to program you to teach little kids about stealing Ferraris, is it. I guess I'll just have to rely on my knowledge of heist movies. Lord help me."  
  
Borton had little to go on. She had always found heist films repetitive and boring, and had watched few of them in her lifetime. Even so, she did her best to try and recall the different hot-wiring methods that she'd seen on screen. The first involved opening the bonnet of the car. That, or anything else that had to do with leaving the safety of the car, was out of the question. The next method required her to look under the steering wheel. Hastily, she got in place, leaning her head down beneath the dash so as not to be seen. Using one of the screwdrivers from her pocket, she attempted to take the steering wheel access cover off, and paused. Once she got inside, she would need to locate the ignition wires (in the movies they were usually red), strip them, and twist them together. Then the car would stat. But what were the odds starting the car that way would set an alarm off? Anything as loud a car alarm would draw the zombies to her like moths to a flame, and even if she had the car started by then, how much time would they give her to gain momentum? There was no way she would be able to plow through the crowd from a dead stand still.  
  
Exasperated, Borton leaned her head against the steering wheel – gingerly, so as not to honk the horn – and swore. She heard a sympathetic whine from Thomas, saw him clenching and unclenching his long, clawed fingers. That sparked an idea. She looked from his fingers to the screwdriver in her hand.  
  
"Wait." she said, eyes wide.  
  
Abandoning the access cover, she placed the tip of the screwdriver in front of the ignition lock and shoved it in, twisting it hard as if it were the key. The car rumbled to life. Success.  
  
Sitting upright with a wide smile, Borton raised her hand out to Thomas. He cocked his head and chirped at her. Borton rolled her eyes.  
  
"Note to self. Teach the raptor how to high-five."  
  
With that, she clicked the seat-belt around herself, popped the gear into third and floored it. The car sped off in the direction of the elevator, screeching to a halt in front of the pipes.   


* * *

  
Thomas did not need to wait for direction. As soon as the vehicle came to a standstill, he swung the door open and scurried out of the car. Borton popped it back in third and went swerving off in a figure-eight, a trail of zombies chasing after her. They ignored Thomas as he pressed his snout into one of the nearby pipes – the only one with a smear of blood on the rim.  
  
A flicker of green down the front end of the pipe showed Errol McCullough with a bad cut on his leg. Thomas listened and heard the man's breath, faint and uneven, from the back of the tight plastic tube. Thomas wriggled his face forward, peering further in. From what he could see, McCullough had gone in head-first, and he pondered the probability that he would have to go in himself (to an extent) and try to pull McCullough out. He was strong enough to manage it, provided McCullough didn’t struggle, but he knew that his body was wide at the back and he didn’t want to get stuck himself.  
  
Thomas barked into the pipe and saw McCullough’s shadow start awake.  
  
“Mr. McCullough, do you require assistance?”  
  
Soft groaning from McCullough. It echoed down the tube like music.  
  
“Mr. McCullough?”  
  
A squeal of tires. Thomas lurched upright and spun his head around like an owl just in time to see Borton speed past, on her second lap, and slam bumper-first into a zombie. Thomas watched as the car sent the body flying limply across the tile floor. The impact put a large dent in the front hood. If Thomas had real breath, it might have hitched. He focused on the windshield of the car. Borton looked unscathed by the collision. She continued on, back down the canyon, honking the horn to draw out the remaining zombies.  
  
Thomas quickly turned his attention back to McCullough.  
  
"Mr. McCullough, please stay still. I am coming in to retrieve you –"  
  
The sounds of grunting and cloth scratching along the plastic as McCullough inched himself out of the pipe. Thomas waited, alert. Behind him, the zombies were divided, half of them following the car, and the other half mobbing the toy store entrance.  
  
Out of the pipe now. With his arm around Thomas' neck, McCullough winced and said "Robot to the rescue. Come with me if you want to live, right?"  
  
Thomas cocked his head, perplexed.  
  
McCullough's trousers were covered with blood, and his right hand had a swollen gash that ran from his wrist to the knuckles. The gash on his leg was very deep. Thomas had the instinct to lick the wound, but recognized that there was no time.  
  
The car came around again, and Thomas acted fast. He was able to get McCullough into the backseat before the swarm of zombies could regather. Borton had the car moving again before the back door was fully closed.  
  
It was a tight fit. McCullough, sprawled on the back seat, his head bloody and his face white as milk. Thomas, crammed up against the door, too polite and too wary of McCullough's injuries to try and move.  
  
From the front seat, Borton said "Errol? Errol? He responsive or what?"  
  
Thomas did his best to give an accurate summation.  
  
"Mr. McCullough has suffered a large amount of blood loss. He requires immediate medical attention."  
  
Borton went to reply but screamed instead as a zombie slammed against the windshield, cracking the glass into a lightning bolt shape. Shaking and heady with fear, she jammed the car into reverse and the Toyota Corolla went skidding across the tile floor, leaving the zombie behind.  
  
In a trembling voice, Borton said "Errol? Talk to me, man. Words. Give me some words."  
  
Sounding delirious, McCullough said "Once around the park, please, Jeeves."  
  
"Jesus. Come on. Snap out of it. What happened back there?"  
  
"Dropped my gun." McCullough coughed. "Got it back, though. See?"  
  
The revolver was stuffed up his shirtsleeve. He presented it to the rear-view mirror with a lame smile.  


* * *

  
During his sessions, Irvine sometimes liked to tell his patients that their afflictions were masks they wore. Some therapeutic trick one of his professors had taught him years ago, He found it worked quite well for tension release. He would make his patients pretend to peel away the invisible mask covering their faces, and then request that they take a deep, soothing breath.  
  
"With your new lips. Your real lips."  
  
Sitting with his back to the wall, Irvine envisioned his sanity as a porcelain mask – tight, heavy and suffocating. In his mind he saw it crack and fall away flake by flake, revealing his true face, and all at once he could breath. Pupils dilating, he gulped down a rush of air and felt on the verge of frenzy.  
  
He had them now. Yes. He knew what they were up to. Everything was perfectly clear, and once again, some semblance of order had returned to him. Now, he could prepare. He could take back control.  
  
Right away he picked up the bowie knife and, completely conscious of his own lethality, held it up to the light. While the blade was long and sharp, he realized it would be useless to try and use it against a robot. Really, he had known that all along. But some part of him, cold and dusty from obsolescence, assured him that the weapon would work just fine on a human being.  


* * *

  
Aside from the mumbled moaning of the zombies by the grille, the toy store had fallen  eerily quiet. From across the floor, Quinn gazed at Irvine, shoulders still tight with suspicion. Irvine was playing with the bowie knife again, pretending to stab the air. It looked like he was practicing.  
  
Quinn spoke slowly. He made no sudden moves.  
  
"Henry. Put the knife down."  
  
"Is that an order?"  
  
"Friendly request."  
  
"Well, I'm getting a little tired of friendly requests. I'm getting a little tired of being _dragged all over this god DAMN THEME PARK!_ "  
  
"Henry, just – just calm down."  
  
"I AM CALM!" Irvine shrieked. A pause as he smoothed his ruffled hair back and smiled. "I. Am. Calm. You see?"  
  
Quinn swallowed hard. There was no doubt about it. The other man had snapped. In his mind, he started going over what he might do in case Irvine became violent. He figured there were two plausible scenarios that could develop. If Irvine went for the grille, Quinn decided he would have to tackle him. High-school wrestling style, and pin Irvine down until the man regained his senses. Then again, if things went in the other direction – if Irvine decided to use the knife – then Quinn would have to go one step further. Use the butt of his rifle to subdue him. A good, hard tap to the nose should do it. He hoped.  
  
Irvine started to stand. Quinn got to his feet along with him. Irvine saw that Quinn was holding the rifle, and his eyes narrowed.  
  
"I know. You think I don't? You're in on it, too. Same as the others." Irvine sneered, each word dripping with harsh accusation. He went on quickly, before Quinn could utter a rebuke. "You were contracted as a Firdos consultant. You said so. Admit it. You're one of them, _aren't you_. Aren't you." he hissed, pointing a stiff finger at Quinn's chest.  
  
"Henry, I don't know what you're talking about."  
  
Irvine smiled back at him. "It doesn't matter."  
  
With that, he took two large footsteps toward the grille crank.   
  
Quinn said "Come over here."  
  
Still smiling, still moving towards the grille crank – "Or what? You'll hit me with that?"  
  
"Yeah. I'll hit you with this." Quinn said, showing him the butt of the rifle.  
  
"Won't hurt me. I'm almost done changing, and when I'm finished, you can tell the others the experiment was a success."  
  
Quinn mopped his brow with his forearm. Irvine had not yet lowered the knife, and now he was very close to the grille crank. Reaching for it. Quinn thrust forward, jutting the rifle up to knock the knife out of Irvine's hand. For a brief second Quinn's eyes followed the knife as it went skittering across the floor. Then Irvine was leaping at him, expression utterly deranged. Quinn was too slow to react. Irvine struck him hard in the neck with his elbow, and the pain in Quinn's shoulder seethed and roiled. He fell to his knees, paralyzed. Irvine went back to the crank and began to turn it, lifting the grille. A swell of moans from the zombies behind it. Writhing on the floor, Quinn went to reach for the rifle, saw Irvine leave the crank box and kick the rifle away, just out of reach.   
  
"Don't. They'll tear you to pieces." Quinn coughed, breath ragged.  
  
Serene – "No they won't. I'm one of them now."  
  
Quinn tried to pick himself up off the floor and failed. "You're not, Henry. You're not a robot, you're just drunk. Scared and drunk. Please –"  
   
Irvine said nothing and returned to the crank box, proceeding to lift the grille the rest of the way up.  
  
"Henry. Henry for _god's SAKE! Listen to me! They'll kill us both!_ "  
  
Quinn saw the grille lift and struggled to get to his feet. By the time he seized hold of the rifle again, it was already too late.  


* * *

  
At first, Irvine was perfectly calm, the scene reminiscent of fire-walkers or Buddhist monks that stepped off cliffs while smiling. He was so utterly convinced in his own mechanical metamorphosis, so happy with the idea that robots couldn't feel pain – or anxiety – that he neglected to dodge the first blow altogether. Rather, he welcomed it with arms outstretched. Brother meets brother. Machine meets machine.  
  
Irvine felt a terrible pressure as a pair of metal jaws closed around his hip. He was dragged to the ground like a rag-doll and overtaken by a dog-pile of zombies. They crushed down on him, scraping and biting at every accessible inch of flesh. He gasped – fear suddenly present again – and sunk into the swarm, horrified. At least a dozen bodies writhed on top of him, and as he struggled to breath he began to grow lightheaded. It was as if his guts were being compacted. With the last of his shrinking strength he jabbed his bandaged fist into the glowing eye of one of the nearest robots. A backlash as it bit down and four of Irvine's fingers vanished down it's throat. Irvine pulled his hand away and saw a bloody stump. No metal worms, no pistons, nothing robotic about his hand at all.  
  
This time he couldn't scream. There was no air left in his lungs, and despite his pained attempts, he couldn't inflate his chest. There was too much weight on it. The last thing Henry Irvine saw before he died was the shinning eyes of the robotic zombie gazing at him through a violent spray of his own blood.  


* * *

  
Quinn could only stand and watch as Irvine was pulled away in a vicious tangle of arms, legs and ugly moaning. When the little man had been swallowed up by the ever-moving mass of bodies, a vague shape somewhere under the strobing flicker of the failing lights, Quinn was overcome with the urge to vomit. Repressing it with a thick gulp, he began to inch carefully away. The zombies (it looked like all of them) were distracted. Whether by sacrifice or suicide, it meant just the one thing. Now was Quinn's chance to escape.  
  
He fled to the back of the store with the rifle and the knapsack. Using his good shoulder, he ran full-speed at the fire door, and was surprised by how easily it gave way. He found himself at the edge of a long, narrow hallway, partially filled with over-sized delivery pallets of cardboard boxes, tightly wrapped in large sheets of plastic cling-wrap. Some of them were still on pallet-jacks. Quinn saw that the faces of the top layer of boxes were unmarked, realizing they were all for show. Hurriedly, he took up the handle of one of the pallet-jacks and, through sheer tenacity, dragged the heavy pallet of boxes it in front of the door. Luckily, it was just big enough to completely block up the entrance.  
  
From there, he jogged along the passageway, ceiling hidden by air conditioning ducts. He saw more boxes – kept under lock and key behind a wide chain link fence – and he thought he could smell the rotten stench of dumpster trash creeping from behind them.  
  
He kept on moving, and came to a dead end.  
  
"Damn."  
  
Backtracking, he found that there were more doors along the left-hand side of the corridor. Quinn surmised that these were also fire exits, and must lead into the backs of the other stores.  
   
He came into the dark mall canyon by way of a commonplace nicknack store. He had no idea where he should go – what he might do if one of the zombies caught him. They were still preoccupied with Irvine (the screaming had died down, thank god), but how much time did Quinn honestly have?  
  
Before the panic could fully set in, he saw the canyon burst into brightness, lit by a twin pair of beaming headlights.   


* * *

  
The Toyota Corolla had come to a stop by the toy store. The zombies were no longer chasing it.  
  
From the driver's seat, Borton saw Irvine standing there in the open, facing the zombies that had pressed themselves up against the grille – the grille that was retracting into the ceiling. Now the zombies were totally free to enter the store. Borton was about to call out to Irvine when she saw one of the zombies fly at him. Irvine was yanked bodily off of his feet, and then Borton could hear him screaming. Horrified, she forgot herself and unlocked the car door. She made a move to step out – to help, to get a better look at what was happening – and felt Thomas' teeth close around her arm, gently, and wrench her back into the safety of the car. Borton wrestled him away and pressed her face against the glass of the car door. She saw that Irvine was now lying on his back, his body already torn open by the throng gathering around him. The other zombies had given up on the car and were now focusing entirely on Irvine. Borton squinted through the fog on the glass. One of the zombies was jerking its head, tugging at Irvine's throat even though Irvine was still alive, still feebly reaching up with his hands to push the decrepit head away. He was being eaten while he was still alive.  
  
Borton's breath was coming out sharp and fast. She was dizzy with horror. It had happened so quickly, and she found she had absolutely no time to grieve. She jumped when Quinn slammed against the side of the car.  
  
"Let me in!" he howled.  
  
With both his knapsack and the empty rifle, Quinn piled into the car.  
  
"Move over." he said, handing Borton the rifle. "I'm driving."  
  
Borton said nothing and hastily slid across the gearshift into the passenger's seat to give him room.  
  
"Found a fire door." Quinn said quickly. "There was a hallway. Took me around to some damn shop full of figurines. Snuck away. Christ. Is that Errol back there? God, you're both banged up good." he said, looking from McCullough's torn leg to Borton's swollen ankle. He didn't mention Irvine, and Borton didn't need to ask. The explanation was there in the jut of his chin and the tightness of his jaw. She could hardly believe it herself. It had been so sudden that it still seemed acutely unreal to her.  
  
She watched Quinn struggle out of his knapsack, open it, and withdraw the second bottle of bourbon.  
  
McCullough groaned from the back seat. "Pass it back."  
  
"Me first." Quinn muttered, and took a hefty swig.  
  
Borton refocused her attention on getting to the exit.  
  
"Tom," she said. "What way should we go?"  
  
Thomas was eying Quinn distrustfully. "Intoxication prevents you from driving safely." the velociraptor piped.  
  
Quinn gave an indignant belch and sent the car speeding down the food court.  
  
"You worried I'll hit a pedestrian?" he asked. He had the bottle in one hand, and was trying to put the knapsack back over his opposite shoulder with the other.  
  
"Try not to." Borton warned. "Those bots are sturdier than we all thought. They'll wreck the hood, maybe even crack the en– watch it!"  
  
Quinn yanked the wheel to the side, swerving around a lunging zombie.  
  
"Fuck me." he spat. "Sons of bitches."  
  
In the reflection of the rear-view mirror Borton saw the crowd of zombies disassembling under the flickering lights. Laying dead on the ground with a large hole where the front of his neck should have been was Henry Irvine, who had wanted to take his chances underground.  
  
The Toyota Corolla plowed through the food court going a good forty miles an hour, and arrived at the far end of the canyon quickly.  
  
"Look." Borton said, pointing to the approaching storefront at the end of the canyon.  
  
Quinn peered over the steering wheel and saw the entrance into a large department store, covered by another security grille. This one was entirely shut.  
  
"Hold on! Gonna ram it!" Quinn announced.  
  
The car shot through the grille and rolled over a display of neatly folded dresses. Shreds of cloth and busted mannequins went flying.  
  
McCullough burst into laughter. "We're on a mission from god." he wheezed with tears in his eyes.  
  
"Somebody, give him this." Quinn said, and thrust the bottle of bourbon over his shoulder at Thomas. Thomas took the bottle and placed it gingerly into McCullough's outstretched hands.   
  
There was a set of large, glass doors at the back of the department store. Quinn sent the car shooting through them like a bullet through tissues paper. Motor whirring, the car raced forward into the dark of a parking garage. Quinn drove with his foot to the floor. The garage was featureless except for the occasional support column, and the endless rows of iridescent yellow parking stripes.   
  
Sitting in the passenger's seat, Borton twisted to the back, where McCullough lay. Thomas cradled him protectively, and shone green eye-light onto the wounded man's face.  
  
"God. They really got him good." Borton commented.  
  
Nursing the bourbon with lackluster, McCullough slumped, shaking, in Thomas' arms, and tried to catch his breath. Borton noticed the rivulets of blood trickling down his shin, his pant leg growing red with the stain. Sluggishly, McCullough turned to look for himself and his eyes welled up.  
  
"Quinn, we really need to–" Borton started.  
  
Quinn slipped the knapsack from his shoulder again, and, taking the medical kit out with one hand, directed Borton to use what was left in it.  
  
"I've no manner of luck today, have I." McCullough said as Borton twisted again to lean partway over him. He was struggling to keep his voice even. "They're all after me today."  
  
He was right. He seemed to be the main target for many of the robots they'd encountered. The tyrannosaurus, the zombies, even his own guide.  
  
"I'll take care of it." said Borton. It was hard for her to see him like that. Stripped of his bravery, sense of humor shaken.  
  
Borton opened the medical kit and collected the various first aid items it contained. Gauze, tape, band-aids, iodine. There was no washcloth available, so she tore a small square of her shirt at the stomach and twisted the cap off the iodine bottle. Meanwhile, McCullough began painfully pealing off his trousers. Borton offered him the cloth, dipped in iodine, and McCullough stared back at her helplessly. She tried not to look above his thighs while she wiped the wound clean.  
  
The damage was gradually revealed, the brunt of it on his leg. Massive claw marks, deep scratches, and puncture wounds – a single, deep bite mark. It looked like he's stepped foot-first into a razor-sharp bear-trap.  
  
"Won't get sick, will I? No. No gangrene. You're disinfecting it, aye." McCullough assured himself. "Good girl. Sweet lass. I'll be fine. I'll be dancing come Friday, just you wait."  
  
Borton started tearing off strips of gauze and taping it on in thick patches over McCullough's bloody shin. Oblivious, McCullough fumbled for a smoke, clawing one out of the pack he'd placed into his trouser pocket.  
  
"Pass me back the lighter." McCullough panted.  
  
Thomas said "Smoking is bad for your health."  
  
In his haste Quinn was unable to get the car lighter to work. Borton had to pause and work it for him. Carefully, she lit McCullough's cigarette and watched him take a jittery drag before resuming the first aid. A heavy silence fell between them. Borton kept working.  
  
"You saved me." McCullough said, dazed.  
  
"Yes." Borton acknowledged, heavily focused on bandaging him up. It was slightly trickier this time around. More than just a few scratches to the cheeks. She could see the exposed muscle below the shinbone, it was badly ripped.  
  
Her face hung over McCullough as she worked, lips pursed in concentration, hair framing her cheeks like drooping petals. McCullough was too foregone to conceal the fact he thought she looked rather good.  
  
"Is it appropriate to say I love you?" he joked.  
  
Beside her, Thomas snorted loudly.  
  
"Thanks'll do just fine." Borton told McCullough. "Does it hurt?"  
  
"I'm in shock. Nothing hurts."  
  
"Jesus. That's not good."  
  
"Just fix me up. Please. I was only kidding. I'll be fine. Just fine. Promise. Really." he said, smiling with the cigarette between his teeth.  
  
"How much further?" she asked Quinn, peering along the beams of green light as she finished up her work.  
  
Quinn wasn't sure, but be sensed the garage was gently tilting upward, leading them up to the surface.  
  
"Can't be much longer." Quinn said, and frowned. "Tom, shine that light somewhere else, huh. There's a glare on the mirror. Catching me right in the eye."  
  
Finished, Borton turned back around as the green light dwindled. She eyed her wrist, wishing she'd bothered to put her watch on that morning. "What time is it, anyway?"  
  
From behind them, McCullough croaked "Ten thirty. It's on the radio clock."  
  
They burst out into the open with shocking speed. There was a light powder-fine ash in the blowing wind, and it helped to obscure the building that loomed directly in front of them. Quinn saw at once that it was the maintenance shed. It sat on pylons in the center of the pavement block, directly beneath the star-speckled hull of the interior dome surface.   
  
"We're on the roof of the mall." Borton said, amazed.  
  
Quinn hoisted the empty rifle over his good shoulder, kicked the door open, and booked it for the maintenance shed door.  
  
Borton scrambled to put her shoes and socks back on. Stepping out, she moved quickly around to the back seat and, after helping McCullough onto Thomas' back, followed after Quinn into the maintenance shed.  
  
McCullough's lanky arms roped around Thomas' neck from behind, his head resting over her shoulder. He was still carrying the empty bourbon bottle.  
  
"Hey, there anymore drink?" he questioned feebly.  
  
"No." Borton said, trailing close behind as the four of them wandered briskly across the catwalk.  
  
"That's okay." McCullough replied. "Be plenty in the Zombie-realm. Mead. Honey-wine. Can't wait."  
  
The Zombie-realm maintenance shed was about the same size as the one in the Prehistoric-realm. Quinn was thankful to discover the electric lock dead and the interior of the shed fully accessible. Propping the door open with a nearby brick, Quinn ventured deeper into the building and saw a catwalk directly ahead of him. On the far end of the catwalk, past the pumps and pipes, was the wall-ladder that lead up to the Viking-realm.  
  
Quinn knew velociraptors were strong. Real ones were theorized to have a bite pressure of fifteen thousand pounds a square inch. No doubt a robotic one could probably bite harder, and he had already seen the zombies bite through steel, so –  
  
"Tom, help me with the door." Quinn requested.  
  
Carefully, Borton removed McCullough from Thomas' back and propped him against the wall by the ladder. Thomas hopped onto the top rung and bit into the latch handle. Antiseptic saliva foamed on the metal, spattering down onto the ladder rungs and floor. Snorting and snarling, Thomas jerked his head one final time, grinding his teeth into the wheel. With that, he was able to twist the hatch open.  
  
Thomas climbed up and through the open hatch to scout ahead. Quinn and Borton waited just below with their fingers crossed. Beside them, sitting in a heap against the wall, McCullough – still bleeding, and talking to himself.  
  
"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs." McCullough chimed, ticking each step off on one of his fingers.  
  
"Robotic dinosaurs." Borton corrected from over her shoulder. She was only half paying attention to his rambling.  
  
"Yes," said McCullough, finishing. "And dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the Earth."  
  
Borton called up to Thomas – "All clear?"  
  
"Yes." Thomas barked happily. "It is safe to come up."  
  
Borton sighed. Counting the medical-center, that was three levels down, with only two to go.  
  
Quinn said "You first, Jo. I'll bring Errol."  
  
Borton reached for the ladder and stopped. At the far end of the maintenance shed, she heard moaning. The realization that the zombies had followed them into the garage and up to the roof cut through her euphoria like a surgeon's scalpel. She blinked and looked at Quinn. The two shared the same stunned expression.  
  
Quickly, Quinn went to rouse McCullough and found him rooting around in his pocket. McCullough fished out a handful of spare bullets for his revolver and began placing them into each chamber, one at a time.  
  
"You still have ammunition?" Quinn said.  
  
"Just a couple. Couldn't move much in the pipe, couldn't get to them to reload." McCullough replied, clicking the chambers home.  
  
The smiles McCullough gave were usually bright, with a hint of eccentric slyness to them. This one was tight and sad. For the briefest of seconds, Quinn feared McCullough, pictured him aiming the revolver at Borton, and then himself. What McCullough did was worse.   
  
McCullough stood himself up and wobbled on shaky legs. The point of his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip, and it was at that moment that he announced his plans to stay behind.  
  
"Not again." Quinn lamented. "You're nuts. You'll be torn to pieces. Just like Henry."  
  
McCullough shrugged coolly. "That's your theory."  
  
Thomas poked his head out of the open hatch and repeated his previous statement. The group members ignored him.  
  
"It's a grand opportunity, this." McCullough insisted. "There's no better self-esteem boost then when you beat a level on the maximum-difficulty setting."  
  
"Errol, this isn't a game, man." Quinn said.  
  
"Sure it is." McCullough reasoned, and cocked the revolver. He sounded pained, but steeled it.  
  
Quinn took a step forward, his eyes somehow older than they'd been earlier. "I'm not screwing around."  
  
"Neither am I."  
  
"Man, I have to punch your ass out and drag you up that ladder, I will." threatened Quinn.  
  
"Just trust me." McCullough requested, smile faltering only the tiniest bit.  
  
Borton spoke up. "Don't do this."  
  
"Wee thing," said McCullough, "I'd only slow you down. Better I do it this way. I'll be fine."  
  
Quinn stood back in shock. "Jesus. Are we going to loose everybody down here?"  
  
"No one's loosing anybody." McCullough finished. "You go. I'll catch up."  
  
Silently, Borton approached him. She opened her mouth to debate, to implore, but instead she moved to kiss him, brushing the corner of his lips with her own. There was nothing passionate about it. The innocent peck of a little sister saying goodbye to the big brother she never had but always wanted.  
  
Borton pulled back and McCullough gave her a lopsided grin. When she stepped away to climb up the ladder, Thomas was there to receive her. From the top of the manhole, the dinosaur seemed to give her a particularly cold, non-affectionate glare. His animosity went largely unnoticed as Borton made her way past him, into the Viking-realm.  
  
McCullough was confident, even after Quinn closed the hatch and sealed it from the other side. McCullough was still confident when he saw the first zombie step into what little light there was in the maintenance shed. Its skeletal mouth molded into a rictus grin, bits of stringy blue flesh peeling from its jaws.  
  
It snarled in his face. He quailed, and shot it. As the zombie flopped backward to the floor, McCullough saw the others shuffling toward him.  
  
And just beyond them, watching on with some interest, a hatted silhouette – from the hand of which came the blade of a long sword.  


* * *

  
McCullough's gunfire was muffled with the hatch closed over him, and sounded like ice cubes popping in warm water. Borton had to wipe warm tears from her eyes when the shooting finally stopped. She felt a bond with McCullough that was no less strong because they were never lovers. She wished she'd had more time to get to know him.  
  
Carefully, Thomas inspected Borton, saw her eyes shining with unshed tears, mouth turned down in subtle misery. He offered her his scaly hand, half in apology, half in sympathy.  
  
“I’m fine.” she smiled, hoping it looked surer than she felt. “Really,” she added, because Thomas was still staring at her with what seemed like one eyebrow raised. A reptilian face could be so hard to read sometimes. She took hold of his hand for sanity's sake.  
  
Three levels down, only two to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -both the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Ornithomimus (from the races) are mentioned, but neither are actually shown


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been absolute ages since I've updated. Thank you all for being so patient! Now I had to split what was originally chapter 19 into 3 parts, for the sake of my own sanity, so there will be more updates shortly. Hope everyone enjoys!  
> (Also, totally saw Jurassic World and yeah, best very XD Came away very inspired by it, so will probably be writing a sequel to this story in due time – or a separate story about an organic raptor on its own. We shall see . . . )

. . . Tuesday: 10:22 pm . . .  
 

  


   
Odin's palace was the central point of the Viking-realm. It rose countless stories tall, brooding under a milky, star-strewn sky that looked almost alien.   
  
In actuality, the Viking-realm was significantly smaller than the Zombie-realm. It was easy to see that the realms shrank if one ascended from the bottom level to the top. This was due to the spherical shape of the park its self. But the optical illusion that surrounded Odin's palace made it appear gigantic, and gave it an other-worldly majesty. It towered high above the false world sprawled out before it.    
   
Aesthetically, the Viking-realm was built to look appealing. The magnificent landscape and the pristine architecture suggested something both modern and timeless. A blend of captivating angles and shimmery gold, it drew in its design from classic runes and romantic paintings. A touch of the art-deco could be found in parts of the furnishing.     
  
By the apse of the high tower, the holographic bricks lit and faded like pegs in an electric dart board. The power loss was effecting the geometry. On the horizon, the lobby stood apart from the rest of the palace body, covered in dead, muted gray screens, with the elevator shaft perfectly defined from the ashlar.  
  
Inside, the palace held an ethereal, haunting quality. In it's height and the slant of the high windows, it was like some ancient cathedral. The walls were dark wet stone, and the intricate, painted ceiling was held up by enormous pillars carved to look like soldiers standing at attention.   
  
Below, in the dark and silent depths of the palace dungeons, Thomas stood adjacent to the emergency exit. He felt immediately out of place inside the dreary, Norse structure. His wide eyes gleamed with green iridescence as he peered silently into the surrounding prison cells.   
  
The entrance to each cell was sealed off with perspex, and covered by a stout web of translucent lazier-light that glittered and ebbed with the dying power. There were no bars. Shadowy occupants stood stock-still in different poses at the back of each cell, next to beds and fainting couches. Bathrooms were separated from view by translucent screens.   
  
Carefully, Thomas checked the perspex on the cells. They looked moderately secure, but at the same time, there were no windows in the dungeon. The only way out was strait ahead, through the hall of cells. If the robots woke to strike, he and the others would be trapped.  
  
Behind Thomas, Quinn rested against the wall, holding himself upright with the empty rifle. Borton was sitting on the ground next to him, trying to catch her breath. Her eyes were red and puffy.   
  
"Where are we?" Quinn said after a minute.   
  
"We are currently in the dungeons of the Allfather's palace, in the Viking-Realm." Thomas quietly replied. "If you would please wait, I am assessing the threat level of the surrounding robots."  
  
"What robots?" Quinn said sharply.  
  
He came into the ring of green light and his jaw clenched.   
  
"God. We're totally surrounded." said Quinn. "Jo, are you seeing this?"  
  
Thomas craned his head around to watch Borton wipe the last of the tears from her cheeks. Bathed in the ghostly sheen of his emerald light, she stared tiredly at the robotic prisoners and became very still.  
  
"Are they going to attack?" she whispered.   
  
"I believe their batteries are dead." Thomas informed her.   
  
"You sure they aren't just dozing, Tom?" Borton questioned. He could tell by her face that she wished they still had the electrometer. Just then he would have given anything to be able to scan the room for electrical impulses.  
  
"I am over nighty-eight percent certain that these robots are incapable of presenting a threat." Thomas assured her.   
  
Borton's nervous expression softened. But only slightly.  
  
"How can you tell?"   
  
Thomas was not equipped to sense other robots in the same way as he was able to sense living people. However, battery death was a universal process at Firdos, and as a robot, Thomas was capable of recognizing the tell-tale signs. Reduced electrical input almost always resulted in a robot's physical functionality deteriorating, until they ultimately froze and powered down.  
  
"Are you telling me that these guys just stood around and waited for their batteries to die? That makes no sense." Quinn argued. "What about those charging station things Errol was talking about earlier? Wouldn't one of them have tried to find one? Boost their batteries back up?"  
  
Remarkably, Thomas was able to supply a decent answer. Somehow he knew that many of the viking robots were older models. Just another random tidbit of Firdos trivia the technicians had seen fit to program him with. He knew that only a very few of the robots in the Viking-realm had the newer, self-charging batteries, which meant the majority of rest were instead equipped with the classic batteries.   
  
According to Thomas, the classic batteries required charges at set intervals (usually every night, starting at four in the morning and lasting for a period of sixty minutes altogether), and normally only had a lifespan of just a few hours – twenty at most. Ordinarily, the battery-lives of the older Firdos robots were monitored by the control-room technicians to guarantee charging stayed on schedule.   
  
"When a robot's battery life reaches low levels, it is the responsibility of the supervising technician to wirelessly reprogram a robot to seek out the nearest, camouflaged charging station and re-charge." Thomas clarified, reiterating what McCullough had told Quinn back in the medical center. "However, without the technicians monitoring the robots and their various battery-lives, the robots in the Viking-realm – and likely elsewhere in the park – did not receive a signal to perform their nightly recharge. Therefore, many may have continued to act without recharging until, finally, their batteries died."  
  
Quinn said "I seriously hope you're right about that."  
  
Borton spoke up, sounding slightly less afraid.   
  
"Come on, let's get moving. The power'll run out soon." she reminded them.  
  
She picked herself up off the floor and began to move down the long corridor of cells. Thomas remained where he was. "Please excuse me. I will be just a moment."  
  
Borton turned back. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I am determining the best route to take. There is no need to worry."  
  
Borton said something else, but Thomas was no longer paying attention. He worked on receding into his own mind. Seconds later, he was racing through the foyer of the palace blueprints, kept as a partial memory in the intricate labyrinth of his recall bank. Unlike the plans for the Prehistoric-realm and the Zombie-realm, these were far less detailed.    
  
He skimmed along in search of his exact location, expecting to see the emergency exit that lead up from the Zombie-realm on his right. No. The drawings were wrong. Mismatched in strange ways. The technicians must have programmed him with old plans, changed either before or after the construction of the Prehistoric-realm was finished. Either that, or the files were corrupted. He was having a slow time reading them, and the noise of his processor struggling to spin filled his head. The constant hum of an angry bee.      
  
Up and down the plans fast, reading floors and hallways at lightning speed. Or trying to. He having a difficult time thinking quickly.   
  
The next emergency exit was shown on the other side of the palace in mirror-image space, off the corridor to the throne room, at the top of a connected tower. His mind had reversed the labels, for some reason.  
  
Thomas blinked. Borton was snapping her fingers in front of his snout.   
  
"Tom. Come back to me, buddy."   
  
Thomas gave a quick snort. "Please follow me. I have familiarized myself with the path."  
  
He went to step forward and Borton put a hand against his chest. He went rigid against the warm touch.  
  
“How you holding up, there, buddy?” Borton asked sternly.   
  
Like the most basic computers, Thomas had a way to monitor his internal temperature that was already built into his system. He could view temperature values in his mind's Unified Extensible Firmware Interface settings screen. This allowed him to quickly see his body's temperature and decide whether to vent excess heat manually. By entering the UEFI screen and checking the sensor reports displayed there, he saw that his core was currently running at about eighty-five degrees Celsius. The ideal temperature for most Firdos robots was sixty degrees. He checked the UEFI again, this time searching for his coolant-level readout.   
  
His encoding crackled.   
  
_[Coolant levels: %12]_  
  
Down to less than twenty percent – well past the smallest amounts necessary to keep him functioning properly.  Thomas could not afford to loose any more coolant. Borton had already expressed a high interest in repairing him, but would it be appropriate to stop now and ask her for assistance, when they were still trying to make their way out of Firdos? His need was fairly urgent. Then again, the group was in a hurry.  
  
Growing impatient, Borton said "No secrets between friends. Tell me."  
  
Thomas dipped his head, emitting a shameful whine. “I apologize. My coolant levels are rapidly approaching critical.”  
  
Borton gave him a sad, frustrated look. She withdrew the spare bag of coolant from her pocket along with a pair of needle-nose pliers and said “Right. Sit down.”  
  
Behind her, Quinn started to object. “Really? You’re going to do this _here_?”  
  
“I didn’t get a chance to do it back in the Zombie-Realm.” Borton justified.   
  
Fear had the habit of making people abrasive. Quinn came off that way now.  “We’re in the middle of a freaking dungeon, Jo.”  
  
His comment left Borton feeling prickly and raw. She steeled herself and said “Look, we’re safe up here. All the bots are frozen. Plus, I’ve got room to maneuver, and you know he needs to get fixed. You can go on ahead if you really want to, I won’t complain.”  
  
Quinn squared his shoulders and gave her a reluctant nod. "Just make it fast, okay."  
  
Borton quickly set to work on Thomas' wound. The flap of rubber skin was encrusted with dry, white liquid and flecks of fake blood. The sword-puncture was small, but deep. She had to widen it with her fingers before she could continue. Thanks to the repair session with Cook, she now had a slightly better idea of where Thomas' artificial organs and components were situated inside his body. She did her best to avoid them. She didn't want to tamper too much with his internal structure, for risk of damaging him further. Peering into Thomas' chest cavity, she saw that the coolant pipe inside was torn and gaping in a jagged rip. She took the bag of coolant and cautiously slit it open with the nose of the pliers.   
  
"Lean that way." she instructed.   
  
The velociraptor stretched to the right, exposing his neck and belly to the coolant bag. Sometimes he worried that it disgusted her, to have to work on him like this. That she imagined plunging her hands into cold entrails whenever she reached into his chassis. But this was a stupid fear. Joanna Borton was a professional, and had so far displayed nothing but the clever poise of a professional. Even now, with her nimble fingers exploring his inner piping, she didn't look particularly bothered. At least it seemed that way – from what he could read in her face. Then again, interpreting facial expressions was not one of his strong suits. Compared to his human-shaped counterparts, he was sorely lacking in higher-quality facial recognition software.  
  
Using her hand as a funnel, Borton carefully poured the coolant back into the pipe through the open tear. It was naturally cold and sticky. She waited until the bag was entirely empty before tossing it aside. Then she wiped her wet hand across her pant leg and said “Okay, listen up. I can’t patch this, not without a soldering gun. But I’m going to try and clog the leak so no more comes out. All right?”  
  
A crackle of fuzz danced across Thomas' peripherals and suddenly, his vision was obscured by a snowstorm of static.   
  
_[Error 105. Temperature flux.]_  
  
Thomas shook his head and waited for the disorientation to clear.   
  
"Tom?" Borton asked, looking momentarily panicked.   
  
"Yes. That is all right. Please continue." Thomas answered.  
  
Borton reached into her pocket again, pulling out one of the tampons from her hotel bathroom.  
  
"What is that?" Thomas asked with an innocent, sideways glance.  
  
"Let's just call it _useful_ , shall we?" Borton replied, working the tampon into place inside the pipe.   
  
Thomas perceived the penetration of his framework in the same, serene and disconnected way that he had back in the repair bay, when Borton had fixed his hydraulic leak. It did not hurt him to leak, and it did not hurt him to be taken apart. Not in the physical sense, at least. Certain things could damage his body and harm his system, but nothing could ever physically hurt him. He knew as well as anybody that he had been designed to be opened up and tinkered with, but the fact of the matter remained – his sensory input system simply wasn't advanced enough to register pain or discomfort. Or much of anything else.  
  
But he knew about pain in the academic sense. He had the necessary medical coding to decipher whether or not the living organisms around him were in distress. For instance, he recognized that Doctor Michael Quinn was in pain. The spot on the man's shoulder was bleeding, and he had the habit of wincing whenever he moved his arm too much. The wound would need professional attention soon. Thomas made a point of offering to sterilize it, but Quinn declined.  
  
Twisting the flaps of scaly skin closed over the tampon, Borton said "There. That should do. You can stand back up now."  
  
Thomas hopped upright and ran a quick self-diagnostic. He was already feeling mildly better.   
  
"Does the coolant flow feel hindered at all?" Borton asked him.  
  
"No." said Thomas. "Thank you for repairing me again, Joanna."  
  
Borton smiled and returned the tools to her pockets.   
  
"It isn't permanent." she explained. "Once we're topside, I'll take you back to my place and sort you out properly. Okay?"  
  
Thomas glowed with absolute elation. "I am glad I belong to you, Joanna."   
  
He ducked his head down, inviting her into a thankful hug. She squeezed him fondly and whispered "Me too, buddy."  
  
Thomas pulled away to finish his diagnostic.  
  
 _[Smart fan function: enabled._

_[Shutdown temperature: 78*C/158*F.]_

_[System temperature 35*C.]_

_[CPU Fan Speed: 2973 RPM.]_

_[CPU Vcore 1.24v.]_

_[Coolant levels: 82%]_  
  
He flared his nostrils and vented the remainder of his body's excess heat in a series of short, soft hisses.  
  
"My core temperature is returning to normal." he announced, straitening. "If you will come this way, we will find the exit past the throne room, at the top of the highest tower."  
  
With that, Thomas lashed his long tail energetically and trotted on ahead, aiming for the end of the corridor. Borton and Quinn followed the raptor until they found themselves standing in front of the dungeon entrance. A large, metal gate, locked from the outside with a heavy metal chain blocked the way out. For a piercing second Borton worried that they were trapped again, but then Thomas began working the edge of the chain with his teeth, gnawing it free from the bars with new-found strength until the gate swung open. 

* * *

  
  
From there, the three of them moved upward by way of a long, inclining stone tunnel, until they finally came out into an enormous, empty circular room.   
  
"This is the main hall." Thomas informed them.   
  
The size of the room was stunning. It contained a single, central hearth the size of a walk-in closet, with the remnants of a grand fire still burning, and smoke rising through to a vent in the roof. The gigantic fireplace had an elaborate over mantle with stone carvings containing caryatids and other ornate adornments. Detailed moldings decorated the frames of the large, mullioned windows. Four long dinning tables sat below them. Borton thought she could see the twinkling shine of stars beyond the glass.   
  
The only source of light was provided by a variety of wall candles and standing torches placed at specific points around the room.   
  
"No robots in here." Quinn remarked, looking around.  
  
"No tourists either." said Borton.   
  
Thomas jumped from the floor below and landed silently, perfectly balanced on the ledge of one of the angular windows. He listened through the glass for the sound of hooves clopping on pavement. For the bustle of the marching guards. He heard nothing but the simulated recording of howling wind.    
  
"Anybody? Any bots?" Quinn called up to Thomas.  
  
The raptor shook his head.  
  
"Think the vikings here are hiding like the zombies did?" Quinn asked him.  
  
"It is unlikely." Thomas said, hopping gracefully back down from the windowsill. "Firdos zombies are the only robots designed to behave that way. Here in the Viking-realm, the animatronics act in lavish, regal ways."  
  
While Thomas talked, Borton made her way over to the fireplace. She knelt down over the crackling flames, staring critically at the pile of embers. The heat felt good against her tired face, and she shut her eyes, letting herself simply breath. Several seconds passed. Opening her eyes again, she thought she could see something thin and pale, hidden just below the burning logs. Crippling shock shot through her as she realized the object was a human femur-bone. Beside it, a pair of ribs sat cracked and dirty in the dust.    
  
Borton's mouth felt clammy. "Quinn," she said, "I think I just found the tourists."  
  
She wasn't aware that she needed to sit until her backside found the floor. With a stifled groan she turned from the fire, still warm on her cheek, and did her best to think. Thomas joined her there. The cool nuzzle of his nose against her face was pleasant. She leaned into the touch, a welcome distraction from the seriousness of the moment.    
  
Quinn came to the fireplace and crouched beside her, inspecting the bones through the dancing flames.  
  
"So what happened? The bots killed them, burned the bodies and just . . . went back to their normal routine?" he said, at a loss.  
  
Borton shrugged, willing her head to be quiet. She took off her baseball cap, raked her sweat-dampened hair back with grimy fingers, grimaced, and jammed the cap back down on her head. The high facades of the palace were not the brick refuge she had secretly hoped for. Inwardly she acknowledged that if she had ever held a sense of appreciation for Firdos, it was now entirely gone.     
   
For a short while she sat at the mouth of the makeshift crematorium and let herself deflate slightly as her anger waned into a dull sense of disappointment. Finally, Thomas gave her sore cheek hand an unexpected lick with his tongue that made her pulse flutter.  
  
"Right. Let's keep moving." she said, and struggled to her feet again.  
  
The back of the great hall was cut by two large, arched doorways leading into the service quarters. Through the crazed rush of adrenaline, Borton thought they looked crooked and cross. Like eyes. Thomas lead them through the door on the left and into the kitchen.  
  
Multiple shelves held loaves of fresh bread, baked only hours before Firdos’ decline into chaos. Wooden bowls filled with heaps of fruit lined the stone counter-tops, alongside chunks of raw beef and fish, still juicy on the cutting board. Their smell made the air bitter and musty. Across the kitchen a large, gray cauldron hung above a pit of soot.   
  
Toward the back, smaller doors lead away into other storage rooms.  
  
“On your right is the larder, and just there, the buttery.” Thomas stated enthusiastically, returning to his tour-guide mode.  
  
Quinn gave a halfhearted grumble. “Fascinating.”  
  
Borton frowned at him. Quinn was only a few years older than she was, but just then he looked far older than any memory she had of her own father. He was peaked, and vaguely disoriented, staggering along behind Thomas in a meandering line. Every so often he would mutter a short blast of obscenities under his breath. Borton wished he’d bothered to grab a third bottle of bourbon for himself when he'd had the chance. Lord knew he deserved another drink. At the same time, though, she was glad to see him sobering back up. If they happened to run into an active robot, she didn't want him sloppy.  
  


* * *

  
  
They moved on through the remainder of the kitchen, and into a broad dinning room.  
  
Thomas went first, cautiously sniffing the stale air, looking at the long wooden tables and the spread of old food. Whole turkey legs, bushels of grapes, the remnants of a spit-roasted boar. Nearly every place-setting had been left abandoned, and there were goblets of cider and mead knocked askew. A few chairs remained occupied by frozen vikings. A service wench stood at the corner of one table, holding a wine jug suspended over a goblet. Long since full, the goblet was overflowing with the crimson liquid.   
  
Silently, Thomas passed between the dinning tables, leading the group through the room in a coordinated way, ducking from time to time to peer under the tabletops in an attempt to check for hidden robots. Copying his movements, Borton stooped to peak beneath the nearest table. She saw only the transparent smoke pouring down from the candelabras on the centerpieces.   
  
As Thomas advanced in the dark splendor of the dinning room, Borton lingered at the back on her own, letting her eyes roam over the vacant faces of the seated vikings. A number of them were stuck in mid-chew, cheeks puffed with bites of food and forks hanging out of their mouths. She leaned in closer, eyeing the nearest viking – an older, bearded man with a lean, scarred face. Half a slice of mutton protruded from his lips, and she saw thin trails of blue goop dripping down his chin. More examples of the robots trying to eat, even though they didn't have digestive systems.    
  
She moved along, creeping over to the next viking. This one was held a goblet to it's face, stuck in perpetual sip. Half of his face was drooping and charred, and a cloud of acrid smoke hung in the air around it's head. Borton smelled it and cringed. The robot had fried its self from the inside.  
  
"Guess the vikings aren't water proof." Borton muttered.  
  
Quietly, she went to poke the robot's burly arm. She had never been this close to a human-model before. Not since her initial arrival, during the elevator journey down into the depths of Firdos. Unlike Thomas – whose body was coated in a seamless hide of highly detailed rubber scales – the viking's body-structure appeared to be covered instead by individual strips of artificial skin. If she looked closely, Borton could see the honeycomb pattern of hair in the delicate mesh. Like a spiderweb, it was almost invisible unless side-lit. Borton reached out and let her fingers graze the skin along the viking's bare forearm. Right away she noticed that it was cool and clammy to the touch. Almost corpse-like in its temperature. Apart from that, the texture was a very accurate mimicry of human skin, in both pliancy and muscle fat. She ran her finger up the base of the arm toward the elbow, and tugged at the mass of wrinkles there. She could feel the layers of connective tissue stretch as she moved them. Pulling harder, she heard a strange peeling sound, like Velcro. Then there was a sudden shock of static, and she let go. The skin on the forearm slithered back into place of its own volition.  
  
"Well I'll be. Electromagnetic skin." Borton murmured to herself. "Must stick right to them when their batteries are fully charged."  
  
She tried to tug the skin back off, and started as the viking's arms sprang forward out of mechanical reflex. The goblet dropped from it's spasming hand, and rolled along the floor toward Thomas. The raptor looked up, saw the viking sputter and freeze at the table, and jerked his head around as the wooden goblet rolled by him. Instinctively he chased the moving object, gliding swiftly among the tables to intercept the apple as it rolled. It came to rest by his foot, rocking gently and clicking against the big toe claw. Before Borton could say anything the raptor's sharp jaws snapped down and bit into the goblet, crushing it into two splintered halves.    
  
When Thomas' head popped back up above the tabletops, Borton saw splinters of wood stuck to his jaws. He licked his lips noisily, gagged, and spit the rest back out. The raptor then stared at her from across the room with his head cocked.  
  
Borton put her hands up peevishly and said "Sorry. Won't touch anything else."   
  
As a show of faith she moved away from the table, Thomas' confused eyes still pinned on her. After a moment the raptor resumed his slow, stalking search through the tables, toward the next open doorway. Borton and Quinn followed after him.

 

* * *

  
  
Beyond the kitchen was an enclosed courtyard where an intricate, paneled glass roof hung above a small, private garden. One of the panels had been recently smashed, and a faint breeze brought with it a riot of lilacs and poppies. An antique iron bench stood below the branches of a short elm tree, and a scroll of ivy climbed the trunk toward the dipping leaves. Somewhere, a fountain regurgitated bubbling water.  
  
Borton turned and walked out into the courtyard a few paces. She eyed the towering, vine-covered walls, unable to pry her eyes off the intricate brickwork. At the center of the courtyard, she spotted a quartet of ravens frozen in place around a potted flower. One of them was still moving, hopping awkwardly around it's dead companions. Careless, it knocked it's neighbor over, and then there was a tin rattle as the rest of the birds fell in a line like dominoes.    
  
Afterward, the garden was still and silent again.  
  
Borton sighed to herself, taking in the solemn beauty of the place. She wondered if McCullough had come to the courtyard during his previous visits to the Viking-realm.  All at once her breath hitched with the withering realization that, while the group had been without him for less than an hour, already things felt much, much bleaker. Borton had been made a conscious effort not to dwell too deeply on his absence. It stung her to think of him, and she didn't want to start crying again. But being there in the empty courtyard garden, surrounded by such a calm and somber sight – somehow she was overcome by her memories of him.  
  
Despite only having known McCullough a few short days, she recognized that he had been a crucial part of the group. Now that he was gone, she was acutely aware of how much she missed him. It was almost impossible to ignore the empty space where his manic energy and out-of-place, Scottish optimism should have been.   
  
Borton wanted to believe that she would see him again, even though he was probably (undoubtedly) dead. She wanted to believe that there was a chance that he was still okay.   
  
He could have hidden himself in another pipe.    
  
_Half drunk and bleeding with a leg wound?_   
  
He could have defeated the mob of zombies, somehow.    
  
_With only a handful of bullets and his Scottish charm to protect him?_   
  
He could have been on his way to rendezvous with them at that very moment.    
  
_Like hell._   
  
Borton knew, deep down, that he wasn’t on his way.   
   
Eventually the group moved out of the courtyard and into the next room.   
  
Coming up beside Quinn, Borton huffed a sigh and in an almost-weepy voice said "Why didn't Errol just come with us? We could have carried him out."   
  
Quinn took a minute to answer. "Maybe it's like cabin fever. Maybe the longer we stay down here, the crazier we go."   
  
Borton knew that Quinn was thinking of Irvine as he spoke. Seeing the little man get pulled apart in front of them was apparently a fresh stain on both their memories – one that would likely never wash clean.   
  
"What will they tell the families?" Borton asked mournfully.   
  
" _How_ will they tell the families?" Quinn shot back, and Borton grew quiet again.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Together they moved back down another corridor in the direction of the solar room.  
  
Soon they came upon a large square area, open to the sky. The surrounding walls were decorated with beautiful tiles and mosaics. Borton stopped briefly to regard them, fascinated by the artistry. A good amount of imagination had clearly been employed in depicting the scenes of battle and –   
  
_Wait_.   
  
Borton turned her head sideways in disbelief. The figures in the tiles were not fighting. Far from it. These were illustrations of what could only be described as . . . copulation.  
  
"Sex." Borton whispered to herself.   
  
Like most educated people, Borton knew that sexual stimulation was a big part of what drew tourists to Firdos, and at Firdos it was not uncommon for guests to participate in numerous sexual escapades with one another – and with the robots as well. But Borton had spent the majority of her time at Firdos in what amounted to the kid's section of the park. Even in her present mindset, she was still half expecting a child-friendly atmosphere. It surprised her to see such explicit imagery decorating a public space.  
  
She skipped ahead to the rest of the neighboring mosaics, all of them nothing but graphic images of bare flesh and self-manipulation. Pure and unrestrained arousal laid out in colorful bits of broken glass and stone.  
  
As her eyes trailed over the ceramic figures shamelessly enjoying their pleasure, Borton felt suddenly lonely. With rueful awareness she acknowledged that she could barely remember the last time she had engaged in any type of fulfilling sexual experience. For the last year and a half, a combination of grief and professional accountability (mixed with a very hectic work schedule) had subdued her primal urges to the point of nonexistence, and more or less prevented her from getting her baser needs met.  
  
 _Right, well that's gonna change as soon I get my ass out of this godforsaken place. When I'm topside I'll make damn sure I get laid every night for a month._   
  
Feeling newly motivated, Borton moved along until she found the entrance to the solar room. Far smaller than the Great Hall, the solar room was a private place designed for comfort and short group meetings. Borton rounded the corner ahead of Thomas and came into the room first. Immediately she suffered an absurd burp of laughter, suppressed so fast it might have sounded like dismay.   
  
Quinn rushed up behind her. "What's the mat–oh holy shit." he spat, letting his mouth fall open.  
  
The floor of the solar room was covered with dozens of sheepskin rugs. Stretched out on top of them were numerous viking couples, locked together in naked embrace, their bare bodies an awkward tangle of pink limbs and oily, synthetic skin. Sculptures of similar activities lined the alcoves. The salacious sight made Borton blush profusely. She could feel the need to laugh building up inside her throat, mounting into what would no doubt be a full blown, uproarious guffaw. In her exhaustion it was all too much for her. She had to leave.  
  
Holding her sides and snickering, she retreated from the solar room. Quinn stayed behind, doing his best to analyze the scene.   
  
"It's like an orgy." he breathed, disgusted.   
  
Orgy. Borton chortled at the word. Her face felt hot and crazy.   
  
"It's like they fucked until they froze. Why would they do that?" Quinn called back.   
  
Borton shook her head, trying desperately to keep from laughing. "I – I don't know. I hate this place. I fucking hate it."  
  
From the hall, Borton watched as Thomas stood stock-still in the doorway – casting his narrowed eyes over the various bodies strewn over the rugs. A few of them were stuck in various states of undress. Eventually he went to Borton, offering to rest his chin dolefully on her shoulder. She let him see the tears welling in her eyes. She let him see the mounting hysteria in her shaking, crumpling face. He growled softly at her, concern in his tone, and without hesitancy she wrapped her arms tightly around him.   
  
"There, there." Thomas purred, bringing his clawed hand up to softly rub her shoulder.  
  
Borton buried her nose into the crook of his feathery neck, still giggling. Somewhere in the back of her brain she realized what a unique situation she was in and, though she was sure she ought to feel humbled by it in some way, really, she was more outraged than anything. Outraged and, to an extent, offended that she (of all people) had been selected to deal with something this insane, this ridiculous. These things didn't happen to her. They just didn't.  
  
She wanted to laugh. She needed to, but she knew that if she did she would only upset herself again. Obstinate, she held her breath until the giggle-fit subsided. The lack of air left her feeling giddy and awkward.   
  
When she was recovered enough to speak, she returned to the solar room with Thomas at her side.  
  
Quinn said "How you holding up?"  
  
"Fine. Just surprised me, is all." Borton answered, feeling slightly humiliated.  
  
"Yeah. Pretty shocking, all right. You got any ideas about it?" he questioned.  
  
Borton inhaled a long breath through her nose, trying to clear her head. She found it nearly impossible to look at the scene from a scientific standpoint. It was just too ridiculous – too raw.   
  
"I think that, maybe . . . Maybe this room was built for these kind of, well, these kinds of events." she finally offered. It wasn't much, but it was all she could come up with just then. "Being here might have triggered something for them. The robots, I mean. I think they might have associated this place with that one type of activity – that one type of mode and just gone into it at the time the system crashed." she added with a small grimace.   
  
"Right. You think this could have happened anywhere else?"  
  
"You mean in the other realms?"  
  
"Here. In the other rooms."  
  
"No clue. It was probably just this room that prompted them to up and – to do this."  
  
Quinn's jaw jutted forward uneasily. "What about the bots back there, in the other rooms? You don't think they did anything to the guests, do you? Anything like this? You know, before they burned them? Do you think they might have forced the guests to–"  
  
Borton heard the end of the sentence before Quinn could say it. She glimpsed back at the viking bodies, his unsaid words loud in her ears – enough to take the erotic and twist it into the troubling.  
  
She cut him off before he could finish. "Tom, is it much further out of here, or what?"  
  
Nearby, Thomas was doing his best to tip-toe around the contorted vikings, toward the exit. His face was stony and unreadable.   
  
"We are close." the raptor answered. "This way."  
  
  


* * *

  
  
There were four identical doors set into the grooved back wall. Stepping through the third, the group made their way down a long stone passageway. Nailed to the left side of the wall were dozens of sharp battle axes and painted shields. At one point Quinn set his rifle down and tried to pull one of the bigger, double-headed axes off the wall by it's stout wooden shaft. It wouldn't budge. Quinn gave the axe a final, futile tug, retrieved his rifle and moved along.  
  
Borton was very quiet as she walked. She was busy adding the display in the solar room to her mental list of all the deeply unsettling things she had seen at Firdos. She allowed herself to picture the cramped room alive and undulating, electronic moans permeating the steamy walls, and felt a tiny twitch of arousal stir below her stomach. The result of seeing so many realistic human bodies piled together in lustful connection. If they had been real people she might have envied them. Instead, she felt a strange combination of elation and disgust. She shook her head. These thoughts – while somewhat perverse and regrettably twisted – were only natural. She dismissed them quickly and walked on. But in their wake they left a lingering curiosity.    
  
Thomas' voice traveled down the passageway in rebounding echoes.    
  
"Are you all right, Joanna?"  
  
Submerged in the torrent of her spinning thoughts, Borton jumped. "What? Oh, yeah, yeah I'm all right."   
  
Thomas waited for a moment while she collected herself.   
  
"Hey, can you answer a question for me? I want to know something."  
  
The raptor gave her a welcoming hoot.   
  
In an attempt to obtain some insight on the solar room, she asked him "Back there, just now – what do you think of all that? What we saw? Why do you think they wound up doing . . . that . . . with each other?"  
  
Thomas said "Beyond the simple explanation of corruption caused by the wireless system crash? I believe your theory about the location prompting their behavior was correct."   
  
"Yeah but what if it wasn't?" Borton suggested. "Why else would they have done – done that?"  
  
"I can not say."  
  
Borton sighed at him, feeling vaguely irritated. "You do understand what's been happening here, don't you, Tom? You do get what's been going on? Your brothers and sisters have been eating things. Even though they _know_ it will ruin their bodies. They've been eating things. Eating _people_. Going against their programming and killing people. And now they've been having sex with each other. They've been doing all these things on their own, without any kind of outside encouragement."   
  
"Yes, I do find it distressing that there are so many corrupted robots here." Thomas agreed.   
  
"Well don't you have a theory on it?" Borton asked. "Don't you have any ideas why they're acting this way instead of just freezing or – or walking around in circles or something? Why eat? Why kill? Why have sex?"  
  
Thomas said nothing.  
  
"Errol thought they might be doing it because they wanted to. He said it felt like an example of something artificial coming alive in a new way." she summarized.  
  
"As I can only go by observation, and not hard data, I can not say about that either." Thomas repeated, sounding slightly off put by the mention of McCullough's name. Growling, he added "But the activities in the solar room may have had something to do with the possible distortion of the viking's sexuality programming. If that helps."  
  
"Sexuality programming?" Borton said, interests pricked. "Are there a lot of robots here at the park that have sexuality built in to them? I know in the commercials, it–"   
  
"Nearly all Firdos robots have a sexual identity of some form or another." Thomas replied. "Sexuality in general is an aspect of the main Firdos animatronic programming, one that helps the robots to appear and act in more realistic ways when dealing with guests."  
  
Stunned, Borton said "So the engineers gave you sexuality too?"  
  
While Thomas made no indication that he understood the question, he seemed to break his stride slightly, and had to add a slight hop to his gate in order to recover.  
  
"I do not know what you mean." he said, looking ruffled.  
  
Boron rolled her eyes.   
  
"You just said all the robots in the park have a sexual identity."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, do you know how to reproduce, then?" she specified. "I know you can't, not in a way where you would end up with actual offspring. But do you know how? Are you familiar with the mechanics of it?"  
  
"Yes, I know how to reproduce." Thomas said. "Specifically, my programming carries a small subsection on velociraptor mating habits – although, this knowledge is based on paleontological theory only, and is generally stored for educational purposes. If you are anticipating a physical demonstration, I am afraid I can not–"  
  
"What about people?" she continued quickly. "Do you know anything about the way humans . . . you know?"  
  
"In regards to the specifics of human intercourse, I have a vague understanding of what is involved, but it would be impractical to add the full subsections on human mating habits to my sexual coding, as I am a dinosaur, and I would not be expected to engage in any sexual activity with human guests." After a moment he added "Are your breeding rituals very different from those employed by the velociraptor?"  
  
"Uh, no, not very different." she said. Considering, she added "We don't tend to lay eggs, though."  
  
"You are mammals." Thomas said.  
  
"We're mammals, all right." Borton agreed.  
  
A beat.  
  
"Do any of the other dinosaurs in the Prehistoric-realm have sexuality?" she asked him.  
  
"Several of the jungle models are capable of physically imitating the mating habits of real dinosaurs." Thomas stated bluntly. "Though none would be inclined to do so with a guest, if that is your concern."  
  
"No, that's not my concern." Borton said absently. She was stuck wondering – if Thomas and the other robots all had a set sexual structure or gender programmed into them – then did that mean they felt that they needed a sexual identity? Would it have made Thomas any less of a believable entity not to have that part of his personality coding?  
  
"Can I ask you another question, Tom?"  
  
"Of course, Joanna."  
  
"In your personal, robotic opinion, would you say that you, as a fake dinosaur who doesn't – who isn't programmed to be sexually active – would you say you need your sexual programming?"  
  
"I believe I need it, yes. It is my duty to behave in the most realistic way possible, especially when interacting with Firdos guests." Thomas replied.  
  
"Yeah but, I mean, what are the odds a little kid is going to want to know about that sort of stuff anyway?" Borton put forward.  
  
Thomas reflected on the question.   
  
"It is always better to have more information than less." he eventually said.   
  
"Good point."  
  
Another beat.  
  
"What about gender specifics?" Borton asked him.  
  
Thomas said "Although my body is male-shaped, I am able to shift my tonal range and mannerisms from male to female. If you would prefer a female guardian, I can –"  
  
She shook her head. "What I meant was, do you think you need a gender? I mean, if the dinosaur guides aren't going to be sexually active, then why not have them all be, I don't know, an amalgam of male and female?"   
  
"Some wards may find a female guardian more comforting, and other wards may fine a male guardian more comforting. Having the option to choose helps to make a potential guest's stay more appealing." Thomas justified.  
  
Borton nodded, ruminating on the new information. Beyond the obvious reasons of performing sexual feats with the guests, or in Thomas' case, giving his wards informative lessons on the intricacies of dinosaur reproduction, she still couldn't entirely understand why the engineers had felt it necessary to give every robot at Firdos sexuality. Some of them just didn't seem like they would benefit from that kind of programming. Then again, she couldn't exactly come up with an example of consciousness, at any level, human or animal, that existed without a sexual dimension. In the majority of biological cases, sexuality served as an imperative for interaction. And in order for consciousness to truly exist, it needed interaction to be a part of the equation.  
  
 _But that's way too Freudian_ , Borton thought to herself. _Every biological action can't just be the end result of wanting to fuck. Can it?_  
  
For a long time neither of them said anything. Borton's mind continued to circle on the solar room. Finally, unable to help herself, Borton asked "Do the robots respond? During, I mean. When they have sex. Do they feel anything? Like, electronically?"  
  
"Would you like the technical explanation?" Thomas said. He sounded vaguely tense, as if the continuation of the topic was making him uncomfortable.   
  
"Whatever explanation you want to give me." Borton answered.  
  
"All Firdos models are built anatomically correct." Thomas began. "In the case of the more detailed, humanoid love-models, each is produced with a concentration of pleasure sensors. When stimulated, those pleasure sensors send a series of what can only be described as pleasant impulses to the operations center of the processor. Such feedback usually encourages the robot to continue pleasuring the guest until both are satisfied."  
  
Borton's mouth went dry.   
  
"So, what you're saying is, if a guest wants to have sex with a robot, mechanically speaking, that robot would enjoy it?"  
  
“The guests enjoy it.” Thomas told her.  
  
“But do the robots?” she pressed.  
  
“I can not say, having never experienced it for myself.”  
  
“I thought you said you had a set of pleasure sensors.”  
  
“I said I have knowledge of velociraptor mating habits." he corrected. "I have the standard sensory–faculties. Sensors that allow me to perform fundamental functions, such as monitoring my surroundings, or my systems operations. The Firdos engineers only give select models the upgraded sensory-faculties.”   
  
“How come?”  
  
“As I said, the pleasure feedback acts as an incentive for robots to please the guests. I am not expected to please guests, nor am I physically capable of doing so. Therefore, I have no need for the upgraded sensory-faculties. Firdos robots are only given what they need to function adequately, based on their individual roles at the park.” he clarified.    
  
_In other words, while they're all sexual beings, they aren't all sexually capable_ , Borton surmised.   
  
Before she could stop herself, she asked "You ever wish you had the upgraded sensors, Tom?"  
  
Thomas stealthy claws tapped at the stone floor with every swift step. Picking up the pace, he said “The pleasure feedback is meant to be the strongest feedback processable. I imagine it is the closest thing to real, physical perception that we animatronics will ever have.”  
  
Borton had no idea if his answer meant yes, or no. She wanted to prod the raptor further, but by then he had already moved on ahead – muscular legs pupping in quick, hasty strides, as if he were trying to avoid her.  
  
The passageway ended in a foot of steps that lead up to the next room. The entrance – a pair of huge stone doors – was sectioned off by a series of brightly burning torches. They started climbing the stairs, came to the entrance, and together Thomas and Quinn shoved the doors open.   
  
The group fell silent.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas, Borton and Quinn enter into Odin's throne room, and discover a robotic foe far more dangerous than any they've encountered before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to get out, and part of that is sort of self evident, but hopefully you guys will enjoy it! (Semi-spoilery: forgive me for the emotional roller-coaster I've turned this in to. I promise it's aaaaall gonna be okay.)

. . . Tuesday: 11:07 pm . . .  
 

 

   
   
The walls and floor of Odin's throne room were coated in a firm layer of sleek, shiny gold. Borton glanced down and saw her warped reflection peering back up at her through the glittering sheen. A miraculous, curling ribbon-like pattern swept across the tiles, obscuring part of her face. Above, colorful ceremonial banners dangled down from the ceiling.  
  
Populating the vast room were the robotic representatives of court. At least twenty robots, none of them moving. An entire scene on pause, with viking men and women frozen in place mid-stride. Borton scanned their faces one by one, searching for movement, ready to jump at the first sign of it. Eventually she worked up enough courage to approach one and wave her hand in front of it's nose. The robot gave no reaction.  
  
Cautiously, Borton moved on through the subdued scene, gazing at the motionless vikings as she passed them by, mindful of their lifeless faces. It was like walking through a wax museum. Unlike the vikings in the previous rooms, she got the feeling these robots were looking at her. Even powered down as they were now, she thought she could feel their eyes on her. Following her as she moved back into place alongside Thomas.  
  
Nearby were a number of high, standing torches, the light from which sent the shadows of the surrounding patrons twirling across the walls in a mesmerizing glimmer. Further on, twelve burly soldiers lined the edge of a lengthy aisle, six on each side. They rested their frozen hands on large, blunted claymores. The aisle they guarded lead to a small set of circular steps at the far end of the spacious room, where the throne sat. The back of the wide golden chair had been carved to look like the arching wings of a raven in mid-flight, and was beset on each side by a pair of braziers. The gold in the firelight was utterly dazzling. Behind the throne, a beautiful flowing tapestry made of deep, red silk hung down from the wall. Stitched into it with black thread was the shape of an eight-legged horse.   
  
A massive, muscular viking faced the throne with it's sinewy arm outstretched, pointing a gigantic hammer at the floor. The color of the viking's cape matched the tapestry almost exactly.  
  
Sitting sprawled on the throne, with it's legs spread apart so that the knees touched the armrests of the great shimmering chair, was a second viking. This one wore a horned ceremonial headdress and held something that looked like a spear. Below the horns of it's helmet, eyes the color of murky jade stared directly ahead, unblinking. Borton thought the eyes were startling in the pale face.   
  
Quinn gestured to the throne. "That supposed to be Odin?" 

 "Odin's got one eye." Borton said. "Think that one over there is Thor. He's got the hammer." she added mindfully.  
   
Quinn walked over to the viking at the base of the steps. Slowly, he reached for the hammer.  
  
"I would advise against it, Doctor Quinn." Thomas warned.  
  
Quinn wrenched his hand back. "What? Why not?"  
  
"Thor is the only robot able to pick up Mjolnir."  
  
"Mullah-what?" Quinn said.  
  
"Mjolnir. The hammer. It is exceedingly heavy, and Thor is only able to pick it up through electromagnetic assistance." Thomas explained.  
  
Quinn frowned, eying the Thor-robot with new reproach. Behind him, Borton compared the vikings.  
  
Of the two, the Thor-robot was far more striking. It wore a traditional, battle ready type of armor. Heavy chest plates and intimidating shoulder pads. An outfit clearly made for close quarter combat, and colored in the same dusty silvers as the hammer's head.  
  
The viking on the throne, however, had a much neater, more formal look. It's outfit incorporated far more leather and fabric than metal. The cuts and drapes included intricate pleating, and asymmetrical lines running all throughout the ensemble. The stiff collar and the fine cut of his green tunic suggested an air of mischief and vanity, and set the robot out of place among the rest of the viking men in the room.  
  
"He's not Odin, but he's someone royal. That's for sure." Borton commented, referring to the robot on the throne.   
   
"Got himself one hell of a crown." Quinn said, stepping away from the Thor-robot and inspecting the long, golden horns along with her.   
   
Borton mumbled her agreement. Drawn toward the throne, her feet carried her up the short steps without her volition. She stopped a hair away from the viking's face, standing in-between the legs.  
  
The viking in the throne was tall, very thin, and judging by it's face, it had clearly been built to look handsome. It had the same, typical, overtly classic good looks as every cinematic male lead Borton had ever laid eyes on. She leaned forward, scrutinizing the fine angular features of the head. Square chin, strong cheekbones. A moment later, she found herself critiquing the robot's strangely pale, blemish-free skin – skin like a porcelain doll. She thought the shock of dyed, black hair was absurdly long.  
   
Back to the helmet. Outrageous. She put her hand out to one of the graceful horns, shaped like those of the chamois, but did not quite touch it. She wondered if it was real gold.  
  
Just then she heard the shuffle of something behind her – Quinn, she thought – and then the scrambling skitter of claws on stone. There was a sharp pain at the base of her neck and she heard a strangled grunt from Quinn.  
  
"Jo – watch it!"  
  
All at once she understood. The viking with the hammer had a hold of her.  
  
The Thor-robot was trying to drag her down the steps.  
  
She heard Quinn yell her name again, and shifted on her heel, wiggling out of Thor's grip. That was when Thomas smashed against her. Instant headiness came as she was knocked bodily sideways. Her tongue swelled in her mouth, kept her from crying out. With a whistle the hammer sailed past her to catch Thomas in the arm with a sickening crunch. There was a blinding flash from the windows as a crack of boisterous thunder rippled through the spacious hall. Borton went back a half step and to her knees at the base of the throne, looking down at her reflection before she bent sideways and hit the ground.    
   
From somewhere along the aisle, Quinn was still shouting. He was telling her to stay down.  
  
The next thing Borton knew, there was warmth against her body. Thomas was laying on top of her, pressing her down as the hammer glided over her face, missing it by inches. She did not struggle. Her head was spinning. She came to her senses in time to feel Thomas get up. Sitting, she saw him lead Thor into the center of the throne room.   
  
The two robots circled one another.  
  
Borton watched helplessly as the Thor-robot surged forward and back like a lineman, clunky in his leather boots. He raised his hammer with a theatrical flourish, and the sound systems outside the windows erupted with a second, jarring clap of thunder.  
  
Responding to the challenge, Thomas crossed the room toward Thor in three, long, incredibly swift strides. His wide intelligent eyes glowed with phosphorescent malice in the reflective light of the torch flames. Thor seemed undeterred. Thomas growled menacingly at the other robot, and retreated into position in front of Borton.  
  
Nearby, Quinn made ready with the rifle, but Thomas shook his head –  
  
"Do not engage." he hissed.  
  
Quinn promptly backed down.  
  
Meanwhile, Thor raised the hammer and pointed it at Borton threateningly – causing an explosion of lightning to flare in the windows. Blindingly bright, it cut through the darkness of the room so suddenly it made her see stars.  
  
As if offended, Thomas let out a sharp, piercing screen, and charged. Thor turned on his heel and fled toward the stone passageway. Thomas went bolting after him. Gaining ground quickly on his nimble feet, he held his claws open to snatch.  
  
Suddenly, Thor whirled, and the dense hammer came swiftly from the side to knock Thomas back, and then again, overhand, to land a blow on Thomas' shoulder. Thomas reared up with a clamor of clicks and hoots, and tried again. With frightening speed he swung back towards Thor, jaws wide, and jumped. The hammer came down for a third time, and Thomas crumpled to the ground – tail thrashing alive like a wounded fish, to knock Thor's feet out from under him.  
  
Then Thomas was on him, hissing, screaming. Claws digging into the other robot's tunic and ripping forcefully.   
  
Thor held the hammer out, angling the staff in front of his face to prevent the raptor's jaws from snapping on his nose. All the while, he writhed and rolled under the sleek, scaly body.  
  
"Get him! Tear his fucking face off!" Borton shrieked from the sidelines.  
  
Thomas kept his opponent pinned to the floor for nearly half a minute, but in the end Thor was stronger. The other robot heaved up, knocking the raptor away, and rolled off across the concrete. The raptor's head lashed out, teeth bared, to reclaim Thor's arm – but Thor was ready with the hammer. He sent the hard metal end up to smash the beast's snout, and saw the raptor go careening back to the floor.  
  
"Get up!" Borton cried.  
  
Systems reeling from shock, Thomas groaned, rolled away and dodged the downward sweep of the hammer. Darting to the side, he bounced off the wall, and tripped over Thor's long cape.   
  
Now Thor swung the hammer in a deadly circle above his head. His chiseled countenance sported a mocking grin as he advanced on Thomas. Angry thunder blared in the background, canceling out Borton's jeering.    
  
Thomas scrambled instantly to stand. He eyed the hammer cautiously, started to back-peddle, ducking his head rhythmically as he went. All at once, his powerful hind legs sent him flying ten feet strait up from a standstill with his long claws spread. Thor let the hammer loose from the spin. It went gliding through the air to collide headlong with Thomas. By the throne, Borton let out a peal of shock as she saw her friend and guide land in a tangle with the hammer.  
  
Coming close to the velociraptor, Thor scooped up the weapon and swung it hard against the base of the creature's downy chest. There was an ugly popping sound as the raptor smashed into the stone floor, rebounded, and fell over backward off it's haunches. It looked weakly up at Thor with it's reptilian eyes open, one pupil still glowing, the other not. With a single, sturdy kick, Thor turned the velociraptor onto it's side and came down with the hammer again, depressing the ribcage an inch. Thick white ooze and spurts of fake blood came out of the open tear by the raptor's shoulder. Another blow with the hammer split the casing down the middle. Coils of wire fell out of the raptor's belly like fat, oily snakes.  
  
Thomas was twitching, his whole body shaking on the floor. His head flopped from side to side. His tail slammed and thumped. Hydraulic fluid bubbled up from his open mouth in thick spurts. Coolant gushed from his neck and belly. He looked pitiful.

 Thor raised the hammer once again, and Thomas made a series of raspy choking sounds, punctuated by intermittent, electronic shrieks. The hammer came down – and his vocal output cut abruptly as he went momentarily offline. His leathery tail thumped the floor in helpless spasms.  
  
Borton was on her feet at the base of the throne, screaming and swearing like a rowdy baseball fan. She whipped around the throne and ran with great bounding steps over to the nearest torch. A long, standing lamp-like object. Still lit, it was surrounded by three dazed viking women. Borton took the torch by the base (it was surprisingly light) and with it she spun around in a semi-circle. Facing Thor, she let the torch slide from her hands. The head of the torch flung out into the air, a sprinkle of lamp-oil and orange coals landing across Thor's head and cape. Instantly the robot caught fire, and was engulfed in sweeping flames.   
  
The stench of burning rubber was instant and strong. There was a thin, metal whine, and then Thor dropped his hammer and began to dance manically around the room, blinded by his own burning body.  
  
With her face to the blaze, Borton did not see Quinn sprint to the throne and rob the sitting viking of it's spear.  From over her shoulder came a thin whistle. And then the spear pierced through Thor's chest with devastating accuracy, and Borton watched in slow motion as the robot folded to the floor with it's back broken, still smoldering. It's dying screams filled the room.  
  
She and Quinn watched Thor's tiny, twitching movements slow and cease. The hulking robot sat there in the middle of the throne room, held upright by the spear, it's singed face and cape producing long streams of black smoke.  
  
Quinn went over to the burning robot, sporting a proud look of triumph.  
  
"How about that, huh. Didn't even need any bullets." he said, motioning to the spear.  
   
Borton said nothing. A few feet away, Thomas was on the floor, flailing in a growing puddle of his own fake blood.  
  
When Quinn turned back, he saw the raptor try to stand, and fall clumsily back on his side where he lay panting – great and weary gusts of burning air, his metal ribs heaving to circulate the temperature in his core back to the tolerable levels. Quinn's smile vanished as the raptor let out a long, miserable BIOS beep. The sound was shrill and haunting, like a dial tone.  
  
Borton dropped carefully to her knees and crawled across the floor to sit at Thomas' side. As she examined Thomas her feelings remained curiously flat. The level of damage Thomas had sustained went beyond what he had suffered previously. This was no small wear and tear of the skin, or a quickly plugged hydraulics tube. His rubber hide was shredded in huge, gaping patches, exposing the bent metal of the chassis. Borton could even see the outline of one of the primary access panels, positioned at the center just above the raptor's left shoulder blade.  
  
Divided, part of her saw the broken robot and refused to consider that anything was really all that wrong it. The body was damaged, yes, but doomed? Surely not. But the wiser, more professional part of her knew better. The words _scrap_ and _heap_ jumped instinctively to mind.   
   
She bent over the raptor – "Tom? Talk to me, buddy. Come on."  
  
Thomas blinked hazily up at her with a weary huff. The innards of his mangled body clinked and whirred nosily.  
   
"Tom? Can you even here me?"  
   
_"Yes, I can hear you, Joanna."_ Thomas replied.  
  
His voice was badly distorted, and the clip of each syllable was lost in the harsh fizzle of his dying speaker. Borton had to strain to hear exactly what he was saying.  
  
_"I am afraid I have sustained further injury. I require more repairs."_ he gurgled, burping out a thick squirt of coolant.  
   
Borton bit her lip, struggling to contain alarm in her voice. "Yeah, buddy. You're in pretty bad shape."  
   
_"I apologize."_ Thomas sighed. A flare of sparks shot from his neck in a colorful firework.

Borton remained unfazed. "Not a problem." she hitched, on the verge of tears.   
   
Behind her, Quinn stood by watching somberly. Borton could feel the weight of his eyes on her. She decided she didn't care. All she saw was Thomas, and it was as if the same bubble that had sealed her away on the night of her father's death had returned once more to blot out the rest of the universe. For a second time, she found herself trapped inside of it, watching helplessly as a life – gentle, sweet and innocent – expired.  
   
Monotone, Thomas began to list his system faults one by one, the pitch of his voice wavering and spastic as he went; _"Hydraulic fluid down ninety six percent. Power reserve at twenty three percent. Primary ventilation ports; clogged . . ."_  
   
Borton spoke over him.  
   
"I'll fix you. Just hang in there for me, okay? Real quick repair job. Over in a minute, not even. Just hang in there." she begged.   

Thomas made no sign that he even heard her.   
   
_"Damage sustained to right leg servo mechanism. Damage sustained to left leg servo mechanism."_  
   
"No – no, just shut up for a second. Wait."  
  
_"Damage sustained to battery coils A and D."_  
  
Borton scrambled for her tools, grabbing them from her pockets along with the rest of the tampons and the clump of golden amber.  
  
_"Damage sustained to processor case."_  
  
"Shut _up_. I'm going as fast as I can."  
  
She threw the random items this way and that in a desperate effort to find something she could use to help him, to preserve him long enough for her to figure out a proper solution.   
  
_"Damage sustained to hard drive case."_  
  
"Stop rushing me." she hissed.  
  
_"Backup drive unable to complete save . . ."_

As he continued, the spaces between each fault grew longer and longer.  
   
_"Suffering . . . multiple sensory . . . overloads . . . Unable to . . . access . . . reserve power supply . . . Unable . . . to access . . . network . . . Critical systems . . . failure . . . Emergency . . . shutdown . . . imminent . . . Please . . . seek . . . immediate . . . technical . . . attention . . ."_  
   
Thomas began to regurgitate random material that was programmed into him early in his memory. The date he had become operational, his various designers and constructors, and several slow lyrics from the song 'Daisy Bell'. Borton's name was even mentioned in his rambling death throws, just before the final addition of the Firdos slogan –  
  
_"Boy . . . have . . . we . . . got . . . a . . . vacation . . . forrrrr . . ."_  
   
The last word droned and died away unfinished. Another round of sparks flew from Thomas' neck, and Borton watched as his eyes dulled and darkened, until finally, the light there vanished completely.   
   
Lightly, Borton touched her hand against the raptor's warm face. He was still, as still as she had found him on their first encounter. An empty, dinosaur-shaped shell of metal, and mournfully she acknowledged that the ghost that had once inhabited the machine was now gone.  
  
She removed her baseball cap and bowed her head respectfully.   
  
From what seemed like miles away, Quinn asked her “What do we do now?”   
  
Borton's voice rang through the throne-room, spouting ghastly, miserable laughter. A veteran of some of the more dangerous genres of film – horror, action, science fiction – she had seen the hideously offhand ways in which the world broke robots. On several occasions, she had even participated in the breaking. Planned it out in advance to a meticulous degree. But she hadn’t really known. Now, everything was different. Almost comical in it's atrociousness.  
  
Seated in front of the expired velociraptor robot, Borton withdrew from her grief.   
  
"What do we do now?" Quinn repeated.  
  
Borton touched her lips to her knuckle. It looked like she was kissing an invisible amulet. “I don’t know.” she finally told him. Things had deteriorated past the point of her expertise.   
   
“The boat's coming." Quinn said. "We’ve got to get topside.”  
  
“I don’t know how we're going to do that.” she admitted, feeling numb.  
   
“What do you mean you don’t know? You have to know. This whole thing was your idea.”  
   
Borton was at once uncomfortable with guilt. It weighed down on her like Thomas had only minutes before, smothering her, pressing her into the cold hard floor of the throne room. She sucked in a breath to make sure her lungs still worked. An unhappy choir of voices, their hindsight excellent, sounded off their disappointment in her and their disenchantment in the actions that had been taken.  
  
"Tom, you stupid idiot. Why didn't you run faster? Why didn't you dodge when you had the chance?" she mumbled, involuntarily stroking the raptor's pebbly cheek.  
  
Quinn said "Jo, come on –"  
   
“No, you're right. This is all my fault.” Borton admitted dully, shoulders slumping. "I shouldn't have been standing there. I let myself get distracted. I'm a fucking moron."  
  
"Jo, that viking was going to attack no matter what. How were you supposed to know it was still awake? None of us knew. Tom didn't even know until it was too late."  
  
"If it weren't for me, Tom would still be alive."  
   
Keen to crank up the pressure, Quinn took an angry step towards her. "Jesus. Look, it doesn't matter now. Tom's dead, and there's nothing we can do about it. The power's going to go out. There's more important things to factor in, here. We have to get topside. We have to –"  
   
"How?" Borton said crisply. Her face had gone blank, closed up in the way of a dying flower. "The map's stuck in Tom's head." she told him dismally.  
   
"We know how to get out from here." Quinn told her. "Tom said the exit was at the top of a tower, didn't he? All we have to do is find the tower, and then we'll find the exit."  
   
"And then what? Where do we go from there? How do we find the final exit in the Pirate-realm? I've never been to the Pirate–realm. Have you?"  
   
"It'll be small. Has to be. We can look. We'll find the exit if we just look."  
   
Borton didn't bother responding. Over her shoulder, the Thor-robot continued to burn. She could feel the glare of the flames, painful in the outskirts of her vision. Suddenly she found herself trapped in a hazy fog of exhaustion. The short nap in the medical center had revived her, to an extent, and so had the stay in the back of the Toyota, but now her energy was drained again, and the want to sleep was back with a vengeance. She shut her eyes and found some solace in the dark, though not much.    
   
Softly, Quinn said "You don't want to die here. You told us that, down in the medical center."  
   
"I know . . . Give me a minute. Please." Borton replied.   
   
Breathing deeply, she decided that she had to think. She had gone this far, gotten herself through the majority of the day relatively unscathed. It was up to her to formulate a new plan.   
   
But she was distracted.  
   
Tom's gone, she said to herself. The words were a dam that blocked her composure from returning. _Tom's gone, you had him for three days. Four. You can cope without him. You existed without him before you knew him. How did you do that?_  
   
Borton couldn't entirely remember. She cradled the sides of her head, trying not to let the panic overwhelm her. She couldn't see Thomas' ruined body in front of her, but that didn't change the fact that it was still there. The reality remained annoyingly persistent.  
  
_Tom's gone._  
   
A bevy of responses flooded her brain. He was a friend, she would miss him. He was only a machine, she shouldn't miss him. How should she behave? What was the right way for her to react – to feel? Where should she set her priorities? They had to climb out. She had no idea how they would ever find the final exit without Thomas to guide them. How would they defend themselves against the next threat now that he was gone?  
   
Borton reached for something different to think about. Anything. A thought unrelated to death or to Thomas. She saw the uninvited image of her father flicker to life in the darkness behind her eyelids – naked chest sticking out of the cylindrical ventilator. Lying there, limp and unconscious. She saw herself from a distance, arguing with the medical staff of the ICU, insisting for them to do something, to _fix my dad please you've got all this equipment why can't you help him you've got all this equipment here **just DO SOMETHING!**_    
   
Slowly, Borton opened her eyes. It was as if she were seeing the world afresh, for the first time ever.   
   
She dropped her hands from her face. When she lifted them again, Quinn saw from her changed expression that she had managed to summon a certain amount of resolve.  
  
Calculating, Borton dipped her hand to the floor and closed her fingers around the first tool she felt. Another screwdriver – a smaller phillips-head this time. She brought the screwdriver up to her face and stared at it. Just a piece of plastic and metal, nothing special if you got right down to it. But really, how special the tool was depended entirely on what was done with it.   
  
**_Just DO SOMETHING!_ **  
  
Out of nowhere it occurred to Borton that all she had to do was open Thomas up again, take him apart, and reassemble him in a new body. It was as simple as that.    
  
"I need you to help me." she told Quinn.  
  
He gave her a baffled look. "What's the matter?"  
  
"Nothing. I think I can fix him."  
  
Quinn blinked at her. "Jo, there's no way. He's totally ruined."  
  
"His body's totally ruined." she corrected. "But if we find him a new one, I might be able to transfer his hard drive over to a new body and get him up and running again. If it isn't damaged."  
  
"You can do that?"  
  
"Think so. It'll take time."  
  
"We don't have time."  
  
"We'll have to make time, then, Michael. We have to do something. He's our only way out. You know that."  
  
Quinn scratched his neck anxiously. “This whole thing sounds pretty iffy. What if we wake him up in another body and he goes crazy like that viking just did?”  he asked, pointing back at Thor.  
 “Tom won’t do that.” Borton insisted.  
  
“What makes you so sure?”  
  
“Robots don’t work that way. These robots here – it wasn’t their bodies that got corrupted. Their programming did. Tom, his programming was alright. He never got affected by whatever happened, so he should come out okay.”   

“And you’re positive of that? Putting him into a new body won’t change him at all?”    Borton shook her head. “It’ll be like buying a new car after the old one gets totaled. Same driver. Different set of wheels.”  
  
Quinn mulled it over. Borton would never know how much he couldn't stand to see her looking at him that way, with her eyes tear-glazed and her lips drawn thin and tight in helpless sorrow. She looked so incredibly small, like that. She was strong, yes, and smart. But just then, with her hand drawing lazy, futile circles around the raptor's bleeding neck, she was so very, very small. Like a lost child. Quinn fought back the compulsion to scoop her up and hug her to him. This wasn't a cemetery, and they weren't at a funeral. They were trapped below the surface of a theme park, and they absolutely had to get out.  
  
"What do you need me to do?" he asked her.  
  
Borton looked around at the remaining robots in the throne room. None of them were very imposing, and she doubted any of them would provide the kind of protection she and Quinn really needed. Even the soldiers by the aisle seemed more like pretty-boy models than actual warriors.  
  
_Oh well. We'll be as helpless as sitting ducks, but at least we'll have the map out of Firdos again. And Tom. He'll be alive._  
  
“Find me the best bot left, if you can. Somebody big. Scary-looking." she told Quinn. "I’ll need to swap the battery out too, and replace it with Tom’s.” she added as an afterthought.     
“Hope his battery has enough juice left.” Quinn commented as he stepped across her and over to one of the robots. 

 “Hope it's the right _type_.” Borton replied grimly.  
  
While she counted her tools, Quinn went around the throne room examining every available robot he could find. After several minutes he came back with the viking from the throne, dragging the slack metal body down the stone steps by one leg.   
  
He set the viking down on the floor next to Thomas.  
  
“He’s the only one that looked any good." Quinn explained. "I mean – he's tall, you know? Taller than the soldiers, and he's pretty strong looking.”  
  
"He's fine." said Borton.  
  
She dragged Thomas’ head into her lap, dimly wishing she was back in the repair-bay, where the operating tables were. She would have given anything for a reasonably immaculate air filtration system – one free of dust and ash.  
  
Working quickly, Borton located the access panel at the back of Thomas’s head – a small, square latch the size of a baseball card, cleverly hidden by the mottled pattern of feathers on the base of his neck. Using the screwdriver, she pried it up and off, and peered into his open skull. It was dry inside, and there was an abundance of tiny wires. It took little time to locate the processor. It was low and centered, protected by an exceedingly polished shell of insulated polymer casing.  
  
"Thank God." said Borton.  
  
"What?"  
  
"His processor's okay."  
   
"That mean this is going to work?" Quinn asked.  
  
Borton confessed to Quinn that disconnecting the processor from the surrounding servo mechanisms and then removing it from the machine its self would be a complicated, painstaking job. However, she had done it a handful of times in the past and, while Thomas' makeup was significantly different than that of the previous robots she had worked on, she knew that she was capable of disconnecting his processor safely. Even though her supply of tools was sorely lacking.   
  
With patient diligence Borton took the screwdriver and twisted the small, metal clamps that locked the processor casing into place out of the way. After that, she carefully unfastened the processor from it's place in Thomas' head, and pulled it out, making sure to scoop the adjoining cervo-cables and wires up along with it.  
   
When Borton had the processor in her hands she had to stop a moment and consider the reality of the situation. The processor looked common enough, but she recognized that it was anything but. The small, thin box, no smaller than a potato chip, was gray and covered with delicate circuitry. It held Thomas' entire life inside of it. A complete record from start to finish of Borton's encounters with him, of his memories of her, memories of himself, and knowledge of Firdos. The box was responsible for his basic performance routines as well. Directions for bodily control and physical reaction, not to mention his safety protocols and duties as a mechanical tour guide.   
  
The processor was the physical form of his emulated emotions and artificial personality. As far as Borton knew, he had no back-up copy. If something went wrong, she would loose him. Suddenly the simple task of transferring the processor from one body to the next seemed incredibly daunting, despite how rehearsed of an operation it was for her.  
  
Borton inhaled, trembling. She felt like she was about to perform brain surgery ( _not too far off the mark there, girly-girl_ ), and a crippling pang of self-doubt shot through her. She raised the processor up in reverence and lowered it again, cradling it like a wounded animal, realizing that she had no idea how to do what she was about to do.  
  
"Slow." she told herself. She set the processor down to wipe her sweaty palms across the front of her shirt. "Start slow."  
  
Borton picked the processor back up, stood and thought briefly of her father – of his poise in times of crisis – and proceeded. She hoped to god she didn't damage Thomas during the replacement procedure. She hoped to god she could keep his mind intact, and preserve him just as he was. Otherwise, she was just wasting her time. Her time, and Quinn's.   
  
 She turned to the viking-model, Thomas’ processor in one hand, and the screwdriver in the other. After removing the colossal, horned helmet from the robot's head, she again searched for the access panel at the back of the viking’s neck. When she pried it open, she swore.  
  
She hadn't taken into account the size-difference between the skull of a velociraptor, and the skull of an adult man. The viking's head seemed far too small to fit Thomas' entire mind inside of it. Carefully, she reached into the chasm of the viking's skull and attempted to push several loose wires aside to make room – doing her best to avoid the crucial servo mechanisms in the process.  
  
"Watch it." said Quinn.  
  
"I know, I know."  
  
Borton grappled with the viking for several long minutes until, at last, she was able to make the processor fit – but just barely, and only after removing one or two minor pieces that she considered (and hoped were) unnecessary. Afterward, when she was finished with the last of the rewiring, she sealed the viking's skull shut over the newly settled processor and sat back on her knees.    
  
"Okay?" she heard Quinn ask. He had moved to the back of the throne room with the empty rifle, and now he was looking at Borton and the viking with nervous eyes.  
  
"Won't know if it worked until I put the battery in." Borton replied.  
  
She thought her voice sounded okay to her, even though she knew she was shaking. Her forehead was wet again. Hastily, she set about swapping Thomas' battery into the viking's body.  
  
In order to reach the battery, Borton would first need to figure out a way to open the raptor's access panel. She rooted through the pile of tools on the floor beside her, and was surprised to find a small, key-ring utility-knife among them. She hadn't noticed it until just then, and could immediately see why. It was hardly big enough to stand out among the other tools in her pocket, and it certainly wasn't something she might have considered using as a weapon, but it looked just the right size to be used as a makeshift scalpel.  
  
Drawing the retractable blade of the utility knife out of its short plastic sheath, Borton began to cut the rest of the rubber skin off of the raptor's body. The ruined scales parted cleanly around the blade, fake blood welling out around the incision in thick rivulets to dampen the remaining plumage by the chest.  
  
Afterward, she set the knife next to her other tools to be cleaned later.  
  
Focusing on the access panel, she found a small, yellow hatch with a set of directions printed on the side. "LIFT LATCH TO OPEN. LOCK LATCH TO CLOSE." Borton lifted the latch and the panel swept automatically aside, drawn into a thin split hidden within the width of the metal frame.  
  
Borton took her time hunting for the battery. Under the shell of the chassis she saw a set of six long, silver colored shapes dividing across the cable-work. The raptor's ribs were neat and cleanly cut, and attached to a set of metal knobs that wound into the back of the chassis to become the spine. Borton followed the wiring up the spine with her eyes until she saw where it ended – tucked away into a small pocket behind the lowest of the six ribs. Using the screwdriver, she was able to unhinge the first rib and find what she was looking for.  
  
"Gotcha." Borton said.     
  
"What is it?" Quinn asked.  
  
"I found the battery."  
  
In the particular case of the velociraptor model, the cylindrical shaped Firdos brand battery was stored along the front of the abdominal cavity, slightly lower than a dog's kidneys might be. Borton could see it clearly, tucked against the left side of the spine, laying at a slightly oblique angle in a retroperitoneal position to the power coupling. Diving back into the raptor's shallow chest, Borton detached the power coupling and cord that ran from each end of the battery and into the spine.  
  
Holding Thomas' battery up, she showed Quinn that it had been dented slightly by the last hammer blow, but assured him that it wasn't ruptured. She explained that the battery would still function for the time being. Provided the viking model took the same type of battery as Thomas did. She wasn't keen on the idea of having to retrofit a replacement to match the other robot's specifications.  
  
"Is it charged?" Quinn asked her.  
  
"I've got no way to tell without a multimeter." Borton confessed. "Tom was pretty perky until he went down, though. The battery should have some charge left."  
  
"Does it have a charge indicator on the casing at all?"  
  
Borton held the battery up and looked it over.  
  
"Well I can tell you this much. It's not lithium-based. At least, not by the standards I'm familiar with." she commented.  
  
Etched into the metal just below the couplings was the battery number – "Firdos Power Cell #8101-3415" – but apart from that, there was no charge indicator.  
  
Borton rolled the battery in her hand several times, studying the weight and size of it. She stopped when she heard the battery fizzle in her hands. She brought it to her ear and shook it – it fizzled again. A small, metallic grinding noise that made Borton think of sandpaper on wood. She shook the battery a second time, harder and faster than she had before, and felt it grow suddenly warm in her palm. It was then that something occurred to her.  
  
Thomas had been given one of the self recharging batteries. And not only that, but it's design was exceedingly simple.  
  
"It's a live-cell." Borton explained, turning to Quinn. "See? It utilizes the coin-type Li-on battery with a PVDF film acting as the separator. Because of its position between the battery electrodes, the PVDF film causes positive Li ions to migrate from the cathode to the anode in order to maintain a charge equilibrium across the battery. This ion migration process then charges the battery without the need for any external voltage source."  
  
Quinn blinked at her. "Uh, you maybe wanna run that by me again in English, miss narrator?"  
  
Borton rolled her eyes at him. "The battery harnesses the power of movement in order to store up a residual charge for later use." she summarized.  
  
"Oh." Quinn said. "Gotcha."  
  
Borton continued to look at the battery. Many small, everyday devices like remote controls, cordless mouses, and wireless clocks used such batteries. Borton's own portable music-player had a live-cell. When it ran out, a simple round of shaking would charge it back up for the next few days. Granted, Thomas' battery was far bigger than her walkman's (about the size of a soda can) – and likely stored up a much higher charge when he walked. Still, Borton couldn't help but laugh to herself. She had hardly expected to find such an elementary component utilized by such a complex system.  
  
Carefully, she set the battery down beside her and turned to address the viking from the throne.  
And with a sharp stab of dread she realized that she did not know where the viking's battery was.  
  
Finding Thomas' battery had been relatively simple, but that was mostly due to the fact she had repaired the raptor twice already, and was familiar with the interior layout of his system. What were the odds the viking's inner layout was the same as the raptor's? The last thing Borton wanted to do was completely dismantle the viking in order to find the battery slot. That would render Thomas' substitute body all but useless.  
  
Quickly she said "Michael, bring me another robot."  
  
"Why? What's wrong with the one I got you?"  
  
"Just get me another one." she snapped.  
  
Quinn went to the aisle's edge and brought Borton one of the stiff knights from the first row. Placing the knight in front of herself, she began to remove the knight's battle armor. Quinn stood back and watched her work.  
  
With the knight's armor stripped away, Borton was granted better access to the robotic strips of magnetic skin. They covered over the knight's chest in a single section from the collar bone, over the breasts, to the knight's solar plexus.  
  
In order to avoid any chance of static shock, Borton wrapped her sleeves over her fingers to, placed a hand on either side of the knight's wide torso, and pulled off the strips, revealing the metal chassis underneath. She tossed the strips aside, rubbed her hands on her shirt, and exhaled.  
  
Dealing with the lifeless body of Thomas, Borton had been forced to remind herself that the animal in front of her was not in fact a real animal. That it did not have true flesh and blood, and that it had not died a painful death. It's hull was only an inert, metal replica of a thing that lived eons ago. In this way, she had been able to detach herself from Thomas as she worked – in much the same way as she had when Cook had first opened him up in front of her down in the repair-bay.  
  
However, now that it was time to operate on one of the human models, the disassociation came less easily for Borton. It had to do with the unspoken taboo that went with dissembling a robot shaped like a person – a very _realistic_ person. Staring into the blank face of the rigid knight, Borton found she felt more like a coroner about to perform an autopsy, than a special-effects engineer about to make a series of mechanical modifications.  
  
She shook the feeling off impatiently.  
  
_Just another toy. Not worth getting squeamish over. Keep it together, kido._  
  
The front of the knight's chassis was divided into four individual access panels. Each panel came with a separate hinge-button for speedy opening. Borton spent several long moments reviewing the four panels, trying to determine which she would need to open. If the knight was anything like the raptor, than the top right panel would likely place her closer to the battery. It might also mean that she could bypass the main organs as well, along with some of the more difficult, obstructive pipe sets.  
  
Borton pressed the hinge-button on the top right panel. There was a faint humming sound, followed by a hiss of air escaping – and then she saw the right side of the viking's torso rise up like the wing-door of an airplane. From there, the rectangular slab of skin retracted slightly, revealing a nest of intricate wires and fiber optics running through the center of the chest cavity, all partially protected by a modified version of the alloy rib-structure that the raptor model had. She followed the thickest of the cables down past the ribcage, toward the abdomen, until she reached a point about an inch past his final rib. She stopped and pushed the cables apart. The battery was situated just behind them.  
  
Borton smiled, and shoved the knight away. She knew where the battery was in the human models. Now it was time to open up the viking, and make the switch.  
  
It took some effort to unfasten the buttons of the fine leather tunic and scrunch the fabric down around the viking's wide shoulders, but once the access panel wing was in view, Borton quickly popped it ajar and pushed past the underlying plastic-coated cords.  
  
She had to shift some pipework aside so that she could carefully and systematically unhinge the power couplings. Afterward, she slid the viking's battery out from underneath the tangled mass of tubes, pumps and circuits that supported the viking's main systems, and set it aside. In the now-empty crevice Borton saw a handful of non-insulated components. Liquid-filled bladders of fake blood and reserves of gray coolant. She had no interest in disrupting those if she could avoid it.   
  
"Hey. That it? Is that the battery?" Quinn asked her.  
  
"Yes." Borton said.  
  
"Check if Tom's battery is the right type to go in there." Quinn told her, pointing at the viking's open chest.  
  
Borton compared the viking's battery with Thomas' and sighed with relief.  
  
"Looks like they're both the same." she replied, mentally adding _thank god._  
  
Borton quickly worked Thomas' battery into place inside the viking and closed it's chest back up, arranging the leather tunic back over the freshly-laid bare skin.  
  
She shifted the viking onto it's front.  
  
"Okay, here we go." she whispered to no one in particular. "Hold on to your butts."  
  
Propping the viking up with her right hand, she let her fingers reach around the base of the neck to probe at the start of the spine, exactly as she had done with the velociraptor when she had first found it on the hotel room bed. She held her breath, eyes trained on the viking's sagging form as she cradled it.  
  
Sitting over the recumbent body of the viking, it's vacant head cradled in her hands, Borton felt a rush of exhilaration. She pressed down on the activation switch.  
  
A chorus of distressing sounds erupted from inside the motionless torso. Computerizing chattering and frantic sputtering intermixed with bursts of mechanized squeals – the kind produced by the grinding of poorly oiled cogs. Borton waited with her fingers crossed until the sounds began to subside. Eventually they quieted to a low buzz.  
  
Borton grabbed a loose hold of the viking's hand and touched along the underside of the wrist. Cold, rubbery. She could feel the coagulated hydraulic fluid clumped inside the vein-like tubing just below the thinnest layers of metal and synthetic skin. As the body warmed its self from within, the fluid began to melt. Soon it pumped steadily in a rhythm not unlike a pulse.   
  
Borton went to say something –  
  
Without warning the body jerked madly beneath her, thrashing its way out from under her arms, tensing and relaxing, back arching, legs kicking wildly outward. A second later, and the jerking stopped. The robot continued to spasm weakly until the twitches united into coordinated movements.  
  
All at once the robot stilled in Borton's arms. She looked helplessly at Quinn.  
  
One of the robot's fingers wiggled. A moment later, and the viking blinked. Borton watched as he rolled out of her arms onto his back. Her heart skipped a beat. Success. Hesitantly, she leaned over the viking. She could not read his expression, but his eyes were clear and sharp. Slowly, the viking sat up. She studied him, searching for some sign of recognition, of acknowledgment. Was it Thomas in there? Did he remember her? Did he know who she was – who he was? Did he know what was happening? What had happened to him?  
  
At the head of the aisle Quinn tightened his grip on the empty rifle, ready to grab Borton and flee.  
  
Borton reached a hesitant hand out and touched the viking's shoulder, fingers pressing gently into the leather of the tunic. All at once the viking lurched forward. Borton cried out, stood, and instantly lost her footing. Before she hit the floor she was seized by a strong metal grip, and yanked against the viking's chest. She heard the hurried rustle of Quinn's heels on the stone floor. Quickly, she scrambled loose of the viking's embrace.  
  
"Wait!" Borton roared, and flinched, preparing to be dragged away by Quinn.  
  
Instead she heard Quinn exhale shakily.   
  
Turning back to the viking, Borton said "Tom. It's Joanna. It's Jo. Do you remember me? Do you remember who I am?"  
  
The viking's lips parted and he began to speak, voice toneless and without accent. Boton tensed.      
  
_"Welcome to backup assistant. Please input voice command to continue."_  
  
"What?"  
  
_"Please input voice command to continue."_ he bleated plainly.  
  
Her heart sank. "I – I don't know it. What is it? Fuck."   
  
She bit back hot annoyance and clambered for the memory of the conversation she'd briefly shared with Cook. Had he ever told her what the Firdos activation voice command was? No, maybe – she couldn't remember. She would have to guess.  
  
"Is it Firdos?"  
  
_"Incorrect voice command. Please try again."_  
  
"Um. Holiday? Theme park? Vacation?"  
  
_"Incorrect voice command. Please try again."_  
  
Anger made her jaw clench. She tried to think. What else was there? She remembered the control room, thought of the photograph of Pavakof with the very first robot he had ever built.  
  
"S-Simon? Simon Vladamir Pavakof?" she ventured.  
  
_"Incorrect voice command. Please try –"_  
  
"Calamity Jane?"  
  
The viking's mouth opened and closed.  
  
_"Voice command confirmed. Scanning data archive now. Previous contents have been located. Restoring archive. Just a moment . . . Just a moment . . . Partial recovery fail. Insufficient data available to operate current vessel. Do you wish to draw missing data from current vessel resources? Current vessel resources available from model number seven-five-four-four-zero."_  
  
Borton paled.   
  
From behind her, Quinn yelled "What the hell does that mean?"   
  
"Not sure, but I think it's going to merge Tom's data with whatever data that's stored directly in this model's body. That way he can actually move around as the viking."  
  
"I thought you said the bodies didn't store data. This sounds wrong." Quinn said, raising the butt of the rifle like a baseball bat.   
  
With no time to think, Borton said "We don't have a choice," and turned back to the robot. "Yes. Fine. Do it. Draw the missing data from current resources."  
  
The viking blinked. " _Processing. Just a moment . . . Just a moment . . . Thank you for waiting. Would you like this model to inherit the backup history from Firdos model number two-nine-nine-one-eight-one? The backup was created on a different hard drive. If you choose to inherit this backup, it can no longer be used by the original model."_  
   
Borton gave an eager nod. "Yes. Inherit the backup history."   
  
She crossed her fingers in silent invocation. _Please let this work._  
  
_"Preparing files for migration."_ the viking spouted. _"Importing backup history of Firdos model number two-nine-nine-one-eight-one. Please wait for confirmation . . . Backup download successful. Drawing missing data from model number seven-five-four-four-zero. All data now saved. Reboot will begin in fifteen seconds."_  
  
When the robot spoke next, Borton could immediately tell that it was in the process of alternating it's voice – lowering the pitch and modulation so that it sounded like Thomas. She wondered if this was part of Thomas' initial programming, or simply his own, personal preference.   
  
The first few words came out with a grating, metallic undertone that made him sound garbled and distinctly un-human.  
  
_"Jo . . . ann . . .ah . . . Jo . . .anna. Joanna."_  
  
He repeated her name three more times, getting accustomed to the smaller mouth, the shorter tongue. It was like a child learning how to say 'mother'. His teeth were flat now, and he clicked them on the first few syllables. Eventually, he fell back into the desired pattern.  
  
"Joanna." he finished in the familiar resonance, and smiled at her.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas comes online again and is stunned to find he is no longer a dinosaur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand I'm back and posting! This chapter took ages because, technically, I originally wrote it to be much, much longer. However, in the end it made more sense to me to split the chapter into manageable parts. So here you go - hope you all enjoy, and remember to leave plenty of constructive comments!

_. . . Tuesday: 11:21 pm . . .  
_

 

 

Time fragments for a dying machine, and becomes impossible to predict. Rather than follow a singular line of coherency, a dying machine will pick out sections of memory and blend them together into a disjointed, patternless void. In this void things like titles, names and faces appear randomly and without meaning.  

_[Tues: 11:21]_

Thomas existed in the present, and under the sad gaze of his ward, he felt himself begin to shut down. He saw Joanna Borton's features – obscured by a whirling cloud of static – go from stone to porcelain in a matter of seconds. She spoke to him, made soothing gestures with her hands. He wished he had the capacity to hear her, but his auditory input had long since cut out.

_[Tues: 11:32]  
_

Thomas existed in the future, and dimly he was aware of his mouth moving without his volition. His body was damaged. More than damaged. Was repair even possible at this point? Cold panic set in as he went to preform another self-diagnostic, and found that his internal monologue was responding much too slowly.

_[Tues: 11:15]_

Thomas existed in the past, and he was having trouble concentrating. In his peripherals, he saw the head of the hammer glint fiercely in the fire-light. With the last of his fading energy, he tried to sit up and avoid the blow – but he was prevented by a strange kind of pressure on his side. Something heavy and hard, pushing into him, numbing his frantic mainframe, smothering out that vital part inside his system that made the gears spin and the pistons push and pull.

_[Error: Analog missing. See external reference file alt_activation_v7.py for information.]  
_

Thomas existed.

Gradually, he stopped trying to move, and allowed his mind to drift all the way back to his initial activation. He recalled a room with pale, blank walls and wide, standing monitors. And men. Men in long coats with somber faces. They had asked him to sing a song. He could almost remember the words. He started to sing –

 _[//FATAL ERROR: Prominent damage sustained._  
Invalid setup:  
<Unable to load system directive. Repair required  
System damage = unknown type. 01100101101]

– and then his optical input froze, and everything went black.

* * *

 

In the void there was endless silence – shattered suddenly by genderless speech.

_[//Boot-up complete. Vessel information merged. Please wait while system restarts.]  
_

The ding of an electronic bell heralded a flood of light. And out of the surrounding blackness, consciousness rose. 

 

* * *

  
  
_. . . Tuesday: 11:47 pm . . ._

 

 

When Thomas came online again, his hull felt weirdly expanded. Right away he could tell that something was wrong. He was rejuvenated in a way he was unable to specify. At the same time, his operational routines were substantially more complex than they had been a minute ago.

Thomas blinked and tried to look around, but his optic lenses were no longer laterally-placed in his skull. And the field-view of his binocular vision has been drastically reduced. All he could see was the fuzzy outline of what was directly in front of him, minus his own snout.

Dazed, he tried to focus. There was a short period of lag, followed by a rushed catch-up of data. Then, more lag. The bursts were infrequent, and they lasted only a handful of nanoseconds, barely noticeable by human standards. But Thomas was acutely aware of them. He attributed the issue to his system's acclimation to the new setup. Even now, he could feel the gears and servos inside his head spinning hurriedly away, struggling to translate hundreds of lines of code into an understandable sequence of requests and commands.

He checked himself. His knowledge of Firdos and of the Firdos primary directives were still intact, but he was startled to discover that his internal reference software was full of new and confusing bits of programming. 

Taking his time, Thomas filtered through the strange code, searching for something recognizable. Before long he came across the standard Firdos encryption. Labeled ACTIONS 1A, it was responsible for reminding him to perform all of the usual, organic mannerisms. Breathing and blinking in particular were two of the big ones. But the encryption settings had been altered somewhat. Now they included detailed instructions on how to perform other actions.  
  
But Thomas couldn't yet tell which actions specifically had been added to the ACTIONS 1A encryption. Much of the appropriated streams of code were still being deciphered. 

 And not only that, but several sub-sections of his recall bank had gained access to a number of helpful guides to the human condition.

_[Odd.]_

When his optic lenses finally refocused, the first thing Thomas saw was the misty-eyed face of his ward.  
  
_[Joanna M. Borton. Age 29. Born: 04/10/1986. Status >> Premiere Guest. Purpose of visit >> beta-test subject: Prehistoric Realm.]_  
  
She was tense, sweaty, wide-eyed with concentration. Thomas peered tenderly up at her and purred. Instantly her features softened. Smiling, Thomas went to say her name – and quickly realized that his tongue was shorter, and his teeth were flat.

_[Why–?]  
_

He pushed the thought aside as Borton addressed him. "Yeah, buddy."

Had he been talking just then?

"Hi." Borton finished, her broad, clever face braking into a wide grin.

Knowledge of how to work the smaller mouth came naturally. 

"Hello, Joanna."

He blinked up at the spot on her cheek where fresh tears had settled.

"You are crying." he commented. "Are you upset?"

"I'm fine," she sniffed. "What about you? You good, Tom? All good?"  
  
The muffled quality of her voice threw him, and it was only after she was finished speaking that Thomas realized his sensitivity to pitch, tone and rhythm had become somewhat muted. He knew that the Firdos engineers had built most of the interactive dinosaur models with adaptive hearing ranges based on those of birds. Ordinarily, his saurian hearing would have enabled him to hear a much wider range of sounds, in greater detail. He should have been able to distinguish notes from up to one two-hundredth of a second long. But for some reason, he could only process sounds in bytes of about one twentieth of a second. He was only hearing one sound at a time, instead of ten separate notes individually. He couldn't understand it.  
  
"Tom? You all good?" Borton repeated anxiously in the same, low-resolution she had before.

Thomas nodded, and noticed that his head felt lighter. He sat up, stiff joints filled with partially solidified hydraulic fluid, and looked around. 

_[Location: Throne Room. Viking-Realm >> level 2 – Firdos.]  
_

The air in the room was thick with smoke and dust. Thomas was amazed to find that he could smell it in detail now. The olfactory data was presented to him with words like _[dry 42%]_ , and _[stuffy 33%]_. Curious, he mimicked a deep breath, and felt the intricate filters inside his nasal cavities swell and restrict. He started, unaware that he even had that function.

Borton's eyes went round. “Tom? What is it?”

She moved to sweep a strand of hair off of her forehead, and Thomas saw that her hand was caked in dry coolant.

He reached out a single claw to comfort her and paused when a finger popped randomly into view. Several fingers, in fact. And there was a hand there as well. It was attached to an unfamiliar forearm. 

Thomas followed the length of the arm up, all the way to a shoulder, and stopped. Lightning quick, his mind fired off the mental command for _[fingers : (wiggle) 0, 5]_. As if on cue, the fingers in front of him curled and flexed. Realization struck him. This was his hand. His shoulder. Thomas accepted the fact without hesitance. But where were his scales? Where was the pebbly surface below the ruff of plumage? 

Staring blankly down at himself, he saw a human torso, complete with hips, long, muscular legs, and large feet, all clad in a tight green leather outfit. He scanned himself for a second time, opening every available file at once, and was surprised by what he found. All systems appeared to be functioning normally, but his processor was currently inhabiting a totally different robotic vessel. He touched the elevated star-shaped mark just below his palm, reassuring himself that the vessel was Firdos-brand. 

Slowly, the reality of the situation sunk in.  
  
He wasn't a dinosaur anymore.  
  
How had _that_ happened?

Thomas refocused on his hand again. As a raptor, he had not been able to bend his wrist in the opposite direction. He hadn't even been able to fully straighten it. But in the new viking body, the range of motion was much wider. Now, he was able to fully pronate his wrist to almost a ninety-degree angle. With an astonished chuckle, he waved his hand in a manic arc, slapping and batting at the dust in the air. 

Then he gazed past his hands, and spotted the broken velociraptor lying a few feet away. His smile vanished. The raptor's leg was badly dented, and it's chest was open and covered in congealing vital fluids. Thomas thought he could hear the faint sizzle of sparks coming from the exposed wiring on it's neck. Overcome with revulsion, he looked away from his own remains, optic lenses landing squarely on the Thor-robot. The smoldering figure was still clutching the heavy hammer – the handsome face now a blackened, featureless husk.

All at once Thomas' processors swam with memories of the moments before his forced shutdown. His recollection covered everything except those final, critical seconds. 

"I was inoperative." Thomas said, mystified. 

"The raptor was. You weren't." Borton explained.

"System recovery should have proven impossible." asserted Thomas.

"Yeah, well, call me a miracle worker then, I guess."

Several seconds passed before Thomas finally understood what had happened. He had been broken. All but destroyed in the last battle – and Joanna Borton had fixed him.

Thomas didn't question how. He believed fully in Borton's prowess as a technician, and he knew that she was entirely capable of mending him correctly. But what puzzled him was why she had decided to do it. He couldn't comprehend the choice, since (logically speaking) it made the least amount of sense.

Why would Borton sacrifice her valuable time and energy, not to mention her safety, to replace his body and bring him back from the emptiness of the void? Especially when the most practical option would have been to leave him there and go on ahead, thereby securing her own chances of survival.

The question remained. _[Why?]_ What had made Joanna Borton ignore common sense to such a potentially damning degree?

Momentarily stunned, Thomas sat in the center of the golden throne room, trying to guess at the reasoning behind the actions of his ward.

_[//Problem : vessel operation. // Action : guest = repair of vessel._

_CORRECTION. //Action : guest = movement of core int. new vessel._

_//if: Motivation : utilize protection capabilities of core? = movement of core int. new vessel._

_//Motivation : Potential probability = 55% – given danger of surrounding environment.  
_

_//if: Motivation : utilize Firdos emergency exit procedure contained in core? = movement of core int. new vessel.  
_

_//Motivation : Potential probability = 95%]  
_

According to his own calculations, multiple factors had likely gone into Borton’s decision to stay and fix him. He was clearly much more useful to her up and running. After all, he was the only one with access to the Firdos emergency-exit map. That, and he could provide physical protection, if the situation called for it.

But there was also another potential source of motivation. A third factor that Thomas had only half considered.

 _[//if: Motivation : emotional tie to core? = movement of core int. new vessel._  
//Motivation : Potential probability = 25% – given observed behavior of guest.] 

There was a small chance that Joanna Borton, whose eyes were currently red and whose hands were trembling ever so slightly, had been so dismayed by the prospect of Thomas’ 'death' that her immediate reaction had been to try and reverse it. Solely for the purposes of preserving their friendship. Assuming this was the case, it would imply that she cared more deeply for him that he had originally estimated. 

All the while Thomas was thinking this, Borton had been staring through him with a remote yet ponderous look on her face. Just then the look went dark and stormy, like she was in the midst of realizing something potentially awful about his resurrection.

"Oh Joanna." Thomas said softly, his fondness for her blossoming anew.

Startled by the sound of his voice, Borton's head whipped up.  

"What? What's the matter. Is everything working okay?" she asked, suddenly frantic. 

Thomas nodded absently. He looked back down at his hands, his mind a swirl of artificial emotion.

"I have thumbs now." he finally laughed, sporting a look of pure, baffled innocence.

Borton clasped her hands together in her lap, rubbing her palms together with curious alarm. 

“Yeah. Yeah, you sure do, buddy. And uh . . . are you . . . are you okay with that?” she asked him carefully.

“Okay with it?” Thomas repeated, confused.

Borton swallowed thickly, waiting for him to understand. Normally, she had an almost inscrutable face, but for Thomas her expressions had somehow become as transparent as glass. He watched her bite her lip – her face a mix of eager patience and building tension – and marveled. 

Thomas started to speak. "I am afraid I do not–"

“The body." she blurted. "It's okay – right? I mean I know it's not another dinosaur or anything but it was all that we had and I don't know if you've noticed but we're kinda hard up for dinos around this place so I did my best with what was available and hey it's a big body at least and it looks pretty strong but who knows maybe it isn't I mean it could be but it might not be and . . ."

The rest of the sentence died on her lips. She seemed both aghast and confused by her outburst, but what struck Thomas was the raw concern in her eyes.

Borton forced an awkward laugh, "Yeah –" and cleared her throat, slowing herself down. "Anyway, I, uh, I did the best I could with the body and if you don't like it, well, you know, Michael's the one who picked it. Not me.” she finished hastily. 

That was when it clicked for Thomas. Borton was scared that she had tarnished the act of saving his life by placing him into an inferior vessel. She was genuinely afraid that she had displeased him.

Thomas felt something warm swell inside his circuits and fizzle there. It touched him to know that she cared about him enough to think of his comfort. 

He gave her a tender smile. 

“It is a good body, Joanna." he told her earnestly. "Thank you.”

She blinked. “Really?" The worry seemed to lift from her. "Now-Now you’re not just saying that to spare my feelings or something dumb, right? I mean I can't exactly _do_ anything if you _don't_ like the body but . . . You'd at least tell me if you didn't like it, yeah? No secrets between friends. Remember?”

“No secrets between friends.” Thomas replied with an obstinate shake of his head. “It is a good body, Joanna. It was thoughtful of you to pick it for me."

"Michael picked–"

"I am sincerely grateful for it.” he assured her.

A tinge of red crept into Borton's cheeks, and her smile returned brighter and bolder. She groped clumsily for a response. “Yeah, well, you can work it and everything?”

“I believe so. Some of the modified programs are still coming online. As a result, functionality is slow. But I am sure once everything has settled I will be able to work it with moderate ease.” He held his thumbs up to her and added "I especially like these, if you were wondering. They are an absolutely _splendid_ upgrade."

Borton drew in a ragged breath, letting all the built-up tension fall easily away, leaving her utterly drained. Thomas watched sadly as her entire body sagged with exhausted relief. 

"Yeah, buddy." she said with a hollow chuckle. "They sure are. Tell you what. I'll teach you to play the banjo when we get topside. Sound good?" 

Borton's offer caused the warm fizzle in Thomas to grow to an uncontainable degree. 

_[She still wants to take me home with her. She hasn't changed her mind.]_

In an immediate swell of affection, he cupped Borton's smooth cheek and felt the wetness of her drying tears. Instantly he learned that, although the viking-model possessed poorer sight and hearing, it’s sense of touch alone was vastly enhanced. The contact sent his head spinning in a sudden rush of sensational input that threatened to overwhelm his circuits.

He lurched back as though burned, and scrambled to make sure the synthetic skin on the pads of his fingers was still intact. 

"Whoa. What is it?" Borton said sharply, smile faltering. "Did you shock yourself? Was it static from the skin?"

Thomas shook his head, unsure.

As a velociraptor, he had always had access to the lowest level of basic sensory input. But from what he could gather, his entrance into this human vessel had amplified those responses significantly. The addition of this new dimension of feeling, and the complex, intoxicating sensory input he felt was both exhilarating and disconcerting. 

His processor had not been built to handle such an intense range of artificial stimuli. He hoped the feeling wouldn't spark accidental overload.

Reluctantly, he reached out again and pressed a single digit to Borton's chin. His movements were slow, precise, and he made sure to give himself enough time to brace for the dizzying rush of sensation. He had to admit, touching her felt strangely satisfying, provided he prepared in advance for the contact. It made him wonder if any of it was actually real – if coming back online was something that had actually happened.

"This body has a variety of very advanced subroutines." Thomas murmured, a little breathlessly. There was really no other way of putting it.

"Is - Is that a good thing?" Borton asked. The worry was back in her voice.

"Tactile efficiency will increase."

Borton's smile returned. "Sounds good to me." she said.  

Thomas nodded. With the lightest of touches, he let his long, coarse fingers trace along Borton's cheek to brush over her ear. He removed her baseball cap and tugged lightly on her hair. Fine and smooth like his protofeathers had been. Amused, Borton took the cap back from him and twisted it in her hands, patiently waiting while he played with her hair. It wasn't until she cleared her throat that Thomas realized he was starting to braid it like a daisy chain.

"I'm sorry." he said, and went to retract his hands.

Borton chuckled back at him. "It's all right. I don't mind."

Without further encouragement, Thomas moved a hand down to the loose fabric of Borton's shirt sleeve and pinched it in his fingers. He ran the same hand along his own sleeve, noting the difference. Keeping one hand on himself and one on Borton, he began to trace his index fingers down their stomachs in unison. Borton stopped him before he could make it all the way down.

"Tickles." she explained, letting go of his hand.

Thomas gaped like a dumb fish as another warm wave of warm – 

_[//Error: unable to define]  
_

_—_ flooded into him. Suddenly he felt the synthetic skin covering his body tighten. His mind was practically humming with electricity, and part of him wondered if he had just discovered the world's most marvelous glitch.

With eager energy he slid forward and carefully ran his twitching fingers through Borton's hair again. She gave him a sweet, albeit questioning smile as he brought his new hands to his nostrils. He inhaled a strong whiff off the palms, familiarizing himself with her scent. Borton's smile shrank, just a hint of unease coming into her face.

Just past her shoulder, Quinn's head reared suddenly into view.

"Christ. You really did it, didn't you." he said.

Borton's discomfort vanished. Her mouth curved into a proud smirk.  
  
"Damn right I did."

"Nice work, Hollywood." Quinn grunted. The empty rifle hung limply from his left hand. His right hand was clutching at his opposite shoulder, digging so fiercely into the blood-tinged fabric of the shirt that his knuckles were turning white.

Thomas said "Doctor Quinn, are you ok?"

Quinn's expression was tight and grim. "Don't worry about it, Tom." 

Thomas switched his focus from Quinn's injured shoulder to the Thor-robot. The spear holding the blackened chassis up was the same weapon that his new vessel had been holding earlier on, when it had been seated on the throne.

"You dealt the killing blow?" Thomas speculated.

"Jo lit him up. I pinned him down." Quinn replied.

Thomas leaned forward, trying to picture it. Quinn must have mustered up a tremendous amount of strength to throw the spear. But whatever adrenaline the moment had brought on was clearly gone. Thomas could read it easily in Quinn's pained expression. He eyed the fresh, red stain on Quinn's shoulder with new understanding. 

With deliberate speed, Thomas ran through his catalog of medical data, hoping there was something he could do to help. Despite the new dexterity of his hands, though, his first-aid resources were still woefully lacking.

At last he said "Thank you, Doctor Quinn. I am sorry I can not return the favor."

Quinn went to move closer and in a startling flash of brightness, every torch in the room flared and dimmed simultaneously. There was a faint hiss from the braziers by the throne, followed by the stink of propane gas. It hung in the air for several long seconds, rank and pungent.

Quinn cleared his throat, and Borton and Thomas snapped to attention.

"Uh, think the power's going, folks." Quinn told them stiffly. "We should probably make a move soon." 

Borton had to help Thomas to his feet. Like an unstable fawn, the robot took a few jittery, uncoordinated steps, testing his new legs with careful hesitancy. Initially, he held his arms tight to his sides like a chicken, but stretched them out horizontally in the shape of a T when he realized the counterbalance of his tail no longer existed. Borton stayed close by, ready to catch him if he fell. Thomas continued to pace around the room. His new, long arms flapped uselessly at his sides. Every so often, he would roll his shoulders and gaze down at his feet, bemused to see the leather boots where his toe-claws should have been. He jumped up and down in front of Borton, spun on his heel, kicked the air with his left foot. He changed direction and missed a step, nearly tripping over his new legs. He regained his equilibrium quickly. 

"Careful. Don't think I have it in me to patch you up again." Borton warned him. With her smile finally fading, she looked tired and haunted.

Thomas nodded and turned his hips experimentally a few times, analyzing his own movements.  

"My pubic bones face the wrong way." he remarked, quizzical. 

"You're going to have to get used to a few things." Borton said. 

Thomas thrust his crotch out and back, looking to the others for approval. This time, he caught a glimpse of distaste on Quinn's face. 

Borton said "Tom, no. Like this, buddy. Here. Do what I do."

She started to stroll around the throne room, displaying an easy saunter for him to imitate. Thomas fell in line behind her, exaggerating the movements of his body to an almost comical degree.

"Am I doing it correctly?" he asked, swinging his arms and flailing his legs in a wide, goose-step march.

Borton had to stifle a giggle. He looked ridiculous.

"Ah, perhaps a little subtler?" he questioned, adopting a less spastic stride.

Borton nodded. "There you go. You got it."

Thomas gave Borton an exuberant, befuddled smile. With remarkable poise, he sprinted away from her, up to the throne, and back, demonstrated his newly learned skill. Even without the tail to balance him out, he kept the same, reptilian grace as the velociraptor.

"Not nearly as fast." Thomas said on returning. "This body was built for leisure. I am afraid running can only occur for short durations."

He sounded disappointed by the revelation.

"That's all right." Borton said. "You're doing fine."

Meanwhile, Quinn glared at Thomas with wary distrust. Thomas watched as he snagged Borton's wrist and whispered into her ear. "What do you think, Jo?"

Borton looked Thomas over carefully. "I'd say he's getting the hang of it." she replied wistfully.

"Yeah. But is he, you know . . . _him_ still?" Quinn asked under his breath.

Borton took a second and circled around Thomas, looking at him from all sides. She could see only tranquil concern in his drawn mouth and canted head. As far as she was concerned, there was no evidence of the mania that gripped the other robots in Thomas.  

"I think it's him, yeah." Borton replied, rubbing her chin with thoughtful acceptance.

"Well, is there any way to check?" said Quinn.

Borton's eyebrows scrunched together. "Check?"

"You know. Check. Be sure. We want to be sure, don't we?" Quinn specified.

"Michael –"

"Look, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, here." Quinn explained. "I'm just trying to be practical. I don't want any more of us to –" He squeezed his shoulder and winced, "– to get hurt."

Borton drew her lower lip between her teeth and looked directly at Thomas. As if on cue, Thomas made his way over to Quinn, a big silly grin splitting his new face. Quinn kept his distance. Thomas went to grab for Quinn's sleeve, fingers wiggling eagerly. Quinn hastily shrank away.  

"That's close enough, pal." Quinn said curtly, backing up a few more steps to keep a good amount of space between himself and Thomas.

Thomas' smile drooped. "Please don't be afraid, Doctor Quinn. While my body is different, my programming remains almost entirely the same. I have only merged with this vessel's operational settings. I feel in no way inclined to hurt you."

"Gee, that makes me feel loads better." Quinn said, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. 

Thomas took the reply literally and went to grab Quinn's sleeve again. Quinn raised the rifle in silent warning and Thomas slowly retracted his hand. His features registered faint apprehension.

Borton said "Michael, relax. He's safe. If he wanted to attack us he'd have done it already. Hell, he doesn't even have his claws anymore. Or his teeth. I don't think he knows _how_ to attack people without his dinosaur body."

"There has to be a way to check." Quinn insisted.

"Doctor Quinn, if my programming were to somehow order me to kill you, I would decline." Thomas tried politely. 

"Don't think it works like that, Tom." Quinn argued. "Dogs can't say no to turning rabid. It just happens. We need to know that you're okay before we go anywhere with you. We need to check."

Borton's words were pinched. "And how are we supposed to check exactly? It's not like I can run an external diagnostic."

"There has to be some way to check." Quinn grumbled.

"You want proof he won't hurt us?" Borton asked. "Fine."

She approached Thomas, gave him a stern but hesitant once-over – and flung her arms around him in a tight, possessive hug. Thomas reeled as a tidal wave of pleasurable sensation surged swiftly through him. The jolt was enough to convince him that yes, he was actually there. And that, yes, she was voluntarily pressing herself against him in a very informal (enjoyable) way. 

Briefly he wondered if he should reciprocate the hug. His uncertainty lasted less than a second. With fierce enthusiasm he wrapped his arms across Borton's back and leaned into the embrace. Right away he could sense the pure heat flowing out of her – and as his body instantly relaxed, he let his eyes fall closed, and his head crane back. In that moment he could think of nothing else except for how good it felt to be so near her warmth, and it filled him with sheer joy to know that he could now appreciate her hugs (and any other, future caresses) in such a blissfully receptive way.

Then it ended.

As Borton stepped away, Thomas's eyes popped back open. Sheepish, he flashed her a nervous smile.

All business and brass, Borton said "There. See? He's totally safe, Michael."

Quinn remained unconvinced. "Just because he didn't try to strangle you in front of me doesn't mean–"

Steadily, the two began to bicker.

Thomas spoke up. "I have an idea."

He approached one of the standing solders by the aisle and, using remarkably little effort, pried one of the large claymores from it's inoperative fingers.

Keeping his eyes on Quinn, Thomas said "As a Firdos robot, I may do nothing that, to my knowledge, will harm a Firdos guest, or, through inaction, knowingly allow a Firdos guest to come to harm. This includes overriding my own self-preservation programming in order to ensure the health and well-being of a guest. As I have demonstrated several times now. However, I understand your concerns, and I am more than happy to provide you with a secondary measure of security, if it would make you feel better."

He flipped the blunted sword in his grip and offered the handle to Quinn.

Suspicious, but clearly intrigued by the prospect of a new and better weapon, Quinn dropped the empty rifle and took the sword with both hands. Borton yelped in alarm as Quinn immediately bent forward, pulled down by the weight of the steel. The tip of the blade landed with a resounding clang on the golden floor, leaving a long scuff mark across the tile.

"Thanks." Quinn coughed, winded. 

"Please know that Firdos vikings are less sturdy than many of the other robots at the park." Thomas went on. "As I mentioned earlier, my body was made for leisure activity, not combat. In fact, I believe you may have already destroyed the most dangerous viking here." he added, motioning to Thor. "Should I succumb to corruption, though, please feel free to use that sword to decapitate me. Or run me through. Whichever option seems appropriate at the time. Both will result in my immediate deactivation"

Borton expelled a massive sigh. "He won't need to do that, Tom. Will you, _Michael_?" she said, aiming a stern glance at Quinn.

Again the torch flames glared and grew noticeably faint. This time, they stayed that way. 

"Time to leave." Quinn said pointedly, ignoring Borton's previous question. "Tom, do you still remember how to find the next exit?" he asked.

"Of course." Thomas said. "Just a moment."

They waited for Thomas to orient himself.

"Please follow me." Thomas said coolly.

At the back of the throne room, hidden behind the hanging red tapestry, Thomas revealed the entrance to a stone, spiral staircase that wound away into the wall. 

"Right," Quinn said. Using the sword, he gestured for Thomas to enter into the passageway. "You go first. In case there's anything waiting up ahead."

"Of course." Thomas said.

He went to move forward but stilled below the archway, remembering something. Without warning he broke from the group and went quickly to his previous body. 

Perched on the cold metal surface of the golden floor, quiet and perfectly still beneath the warm firelight, was the velociraptor. 

In silent captivation Thomas knelt before it like a priest at the altar, and carefully examined it's long, narrow snout and it's sleek, compact body. 

Thomas knew the viking would never compare to his original form, though that wasn't to say that he minded being the viking. As he had assured Borton only minutes before, the viking-body was a very good body indeed. It possessed a number of highly advanced features that he hoped he would get to use more in the future. But at the same time, there were aspects about the raptor he was going to miss.

Moving closer, Thomas tilted his head and regarded the angular shape of the raptor's skull and it's glazed, reptilian eyes. The mouth was left slack and gaping in a quiet screech. Thomas set his jaw and found his teeth grinding uncomfortably together. He would miss his old teeth most of all, he decided. The raptor's teeth had been sharper, larger. There were more of them. He went to lean forward, and was caught off guard by the low crinkle of the leather on his hips. He was not yet used to the restrictions of clothing. No doubt his new outfit appeared comfortable and functional on the outside, but internally he was having a hard time moving in it. He continued to lean in, staring longingly at the coat of fine, mottled-tan feathers that covered the raptor's hide. A far better alternative to the leather. The longest quills appeared at the elbow of each, wing-like arm, and ended in a short fan at the tail tip. Many of them were ruffled and smeared with moist hydraulic fluid. 

Thomas followed the blue drip to the puddle's edge and saw his reflection cast back in the glossy sheen of the flat golden floor. A quick glance was all it took. Before he could stop himself, he began smoothing out the wrinkles of his tunic, combing his hands through his new head of hair so that no black curl was out of place. He had no idea why he felt compelled to primp and preen in this manner – but somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped Borton would appreciate the result of his grooming. After all, the raptor was the visage Borton was familiar with, the form she was accustomed to. Thomas wondered if she would view him differently now that he was the viking. He wondered if she would miss the raptor. He tried to picture her below the waving banners, holding the raptor in her wiry arms and crying. The image was indistinct, but vivid enough to stir in Thomas a fleeting moment's worth of true regret. He hoped dearly that Borton had shed her tears for his mind, and not the saurian form that had carried it. 

When he was happy with his appearance, he returned his attention to the raptor. Hesitantly, he reached out a finger and ran it over a tuft of plumage along the ribs. It felt very soft, very real. The tawny rubber flesh was tinted blue and red in some spots, and ragged in the indents where the hammer had come down. Curious, Thomas scratched at the skin beneath the down on the stomach and found it dry and pebbly.  

 _[I am feeling myself,]_ he thought clearly, trying and failing to hide a shudder. _[I am feeling what Joanna felt when she touched this body.]  
_

With that awareness in mind, full and total closure came. Thomas bent forward and plucked a single feather from the raptor's empty body, and tucked it safely into the pocket of his tunic.

Standing, he thanked the raptor and returned to the passageway behind the throne.

"All good?" Borton asked him.  
  
Thomas' smile was genuine as he moved quietly into the passageway. Quinn proceeded after him, and Borton brought up the rear.

 Inside, the staircase was bathed in heavy black shadows. Most of the wall torches that were supposed to light the way had recently burned out, and the stone steps were incredibly steep and narrow.

"Please be aware that this is a poorly lit area, and I am no longer equipped with luminescent eyes." Thomas warned them. It did not bother him to admit the fact.

Quinn and Borton hummed their replies, and made sure to keep as close to Thomas as possible. In steady progression they began making their way up, through the passageway, one after the other in an ascending spiral. 


End file.
